In that moment, a rush from the scaffold forced me from the door.  The sheriffs, the under-sheriff, the ordinary, the gentleman who had assisted him in preparing the sufferers for eternity, and several other persons quitted the platform as expeditiously as possible, that they might not behold the final agonies of the unhappy men.  Sir Thomas took me by the arm as he passed, and signified that he wished me to accompany him.  I did so.  Again I marched through the passages which I had recently traversed.  Two minutes brought me to the door of the room to which I had first been conducted.  Here my friend accosted me with his natural firmness of tone, which before had been considerably subdued by humane emotions, and said—­

“You must breakfast with us.”

I started at the unsentimental idea of eating the moment after quitting so awful a spectacle, as that which I have attempted to describe.  But I had not sufficient energy to resist the good will which rather unceremoniously handed me in.  Here I found the other sheriff, the ordinary, the under-sheriff, the city-marshal, and one or two of the individuals I had previously met, already seated.

“Well, it is all over,” said Sir Thomas, as he took his seat at the table.

“Yes, it is,” said the ordinary, in the same tone which I had heard a few moments before, and admired as appropriately solemn.  “It is all over, and—­” putting his cup and saucer to the under-sheriff, who prepared to pour out the tea—­“I am very glad of it.”

“I hope you do not mean the breakfast is all over,” remarked the sheriff, whose wit I had previously admired, “for I have had none yet.”

The moment had not arrived at which humour like this could be duly appreciated, and I did not observe that any of the company gave even that sort of note of face for a laugh which we had all used half an hour before.

Our conversation turned naturally on the manner in which the sufferers had conducted themselves; on the wishes they had expressed, and the confessions they had made.

But while I looked on the hospitably spread table, I could not help connecting operations rather different in their character, which must have been going on at the same moment.  “In my mind’s eye,” I saw the attendants carrying the fowl and eggs to the breakfast table, while the sheriffs and their guests were conducting the sufferers to the scaffold.

From what I have already said, it must be inferred that the first speeches which accomplished the circuit of the table, were of a very serious character.  But, mingled with them, some common breakfast-table requests and civilities caught my attention, as singular from their association.  The performance of duties the most important cannot relieve man from the necessity of claiming his “daily bread,” and I do not know that it is any reproach to a clergyman that he is not distinguished by versatility of manner.  The abrupt transition from the gravity of the pulpit