when passing the death-sentence always forewarned the prisoner what would happen to him, and that he would be taken from there to the prison, and thence to the place of execution, “where you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead.”  Why he repeated the last word over and over again we could not explain.  It was spoken very solemnly, and after the first time he used it there was a pause, and after the second, a longer pause, and then came the third in an almost sepulchral tone of voice, while a death-like silence pervaded the court, each word sounding like an echo of the one before it:  dead!—­dead!!—­dead!!!  Perhaps, like the Trinity, it gave a sense of completion.

[Illustration:  ST. MARY’S ABBEY, YORK.]

The executions in those days were public, and many people attended them as they would a fair or the races; and when held outside the towns, as at York, a riotous mob had it in its power either to lynch or rescue the prisoner.  But hangings were afterwards arranged to take place on a scaffold outside the prison wall, to which the prisoner could walk from the inside of the prison.  The only one we ever went to see was outside the county gaol, but the character of the crowd of sightseers convinced us we were in the wrong company, and we went away without seeing the culprit hanged!  There must have been a great crowd of people on the York racecourse when Eugene Aram was hanged, for the groans and yells of execration filled his ears from the time he left the prison until he reached the gallows and the cart was drawn from under him, adding to the agony of the moment and the remorse he had felt ever since the foul crime for which he suffered.  As we stood there we thought what an awful thing it must be to be hanged on the gallows.[Footnote:  In later years we were quite horrified to receive a letter from a gentleman in Yorkshire who lived in the neighbouring of Knaresborough in which he wrote:  “I always feel convinced in my own mind that Eugene Aram was innocent.  Note these beautiful lines he wrote the night before his execution: 

  “Come, pleasing rest! eternal slumber fall,
  Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all;
  Calm and composed, my soul her journey takes,
  No guilt that troubles, and no heart that aches! 
  Adieu, thou sun! all bright like her arise;
  Adieu, fair friends! and all that’s good and wise.

“I could give you,” he added, “the most recent thoughts and opinions about the tragedy, and they prove beyond doubt his innocence!”]

But, like other dismal thoughts, we got rid of it as soon as possible by thinking how thankful we should be that, instead of being hanged, we were walking through the level country towards Tadcaster, a Roman station in the time of Agricola.

From some cause or other we were not in our usual good spirits that day, which we accounted for by the depression arising from the dull autumnal weather and the awful histories of the wars he had been reading the previous night.  But we afterwards attributed it to a presentiment of evil, for we were very unfortunate during the remainder of the week.  Perhaps it is as well so; the human race would suffer much in anticipation, did not the Almighty hide futurity from His creatures.