We were however brought back to gravity through the alarm expressed by the minister, at the idea of his having taken cold through officiating that morning without his wig.  This introduced, I cannot tell how, some remarks on the head, which led to a disquisition on craniology.  On this subject the witty sheriff was very amusing. I said some tolerably lively things; but the ordinary beat us all hollow, when it was contended that the disposition and the mind might be known from the exterior of the skull, by remarking that he had now an additional reason to regret having come there without his wig.

With this epigrammatic touch he took his leave, I and the rest of the company laughing heartily, and having eaten as heartily as we then laughed.  The facetious sheriff now had it all his own way, and said several things, nearly, or perhaps, quite as good as those which I have already placed on record.  We were thus pleasantly engaged, when the aide-de-camp of the gallant officer in the blue and gold,—­one of the city marshal’s-men, entered to announce that it was past nine o’clock, and to ask if any of the company chose to see the bodies taken down.

“The bodies!” I repeated to myself, and the application of that word to those whom I had previously heard mentioned but by their names, recalled my thoughts which had somehow strayed from the business of the morning into unlooked-for cheerfulness, and presented, in that simple expression, an epitome of all that had moved my wonder, curiosity, and commiseration.

Again we passed through those parts of the prison which I had twice before traversed.  We advanced with a quicker step than when following those whom we now expected to see brought to us.  But with all the expedition we could use, on reaching the room from which the scaffold could be seen, we found the “bodies” already there.  Nor was this, in my opinion, the least striking scene which the morning brought under my observation.  The dead men were extended side by side, on the stone floor.  The few persons present gazed on them in silence, duly impressed with the melancholy spectacle.  But in this part of the building a copper is established, in which a portion of the provisions for its inmates is prepared.  There was a savoury smell of soup, which we could not help inhaling while we gazed on death.  The cooks too were in attendance, and though they, as became them, did all in their power to look decorously dismal, well as they managed their faces, they could not so divest themselves of their professional peculiarities, as not to awaken thoughts which involuntarily turned to ludicrous or festive scenes.  Their very costume was at variance with the general gloom, and no sympathy could at once repress the jolly rotundity of their persons.