ileged
spectator. No one would have dreamt of disputing the first place to
old Judy. Since the day when, still a young woman, she had seen her
two sons, mere lads, hanged, the one for sheep-stealing, the other for
harbouring the booty, she had, by a strange freak of nature, taken a
taste for the spectacle of justice at work, and what had been the
cause of her greatest sorrow became the only solace of her life. Judy
and her pipe had become as familiar a figure at the periodical
entertainment as the executioner himself--more so, indeed, for she had
seen many generations of these latter, and could compare their styles
with the judgment of a connoisseur.

But as Captain Jack advanced, the pallor of his clean shorn, handsome
face illumined not so much by the morning sun without it seemed as by
the shining of the bright spirit within; as gallantly clad as he had
ever been, even in the old Bath days when he had been courting fair
Madeleine de Savenaye; his head proudly uplifted, his tread firm,
strong of soul, strong of body--some chord was struck in the perverted
old heart that had so long revelled in unholy and gruesome pleasure.
She drew the pipe from her lips, and broke out into screeching
lamentations.

"Oh, me boy, me boy, me beautiful boy! Is it hang him they will, and
he so beautiful and brave? The murthering villains, my curse on
them--a mother's curse--God's curse on them--the black murtherers!"

She scrambled to her feet, and shook her fist wildly in the face of
one of the sheriff's men.

A woman in the crowd, standing rigid and motionless, enveloped in
mourning robes, here suddenly caught up the words with a muttering
lip.

"Murderers, who said murderers? Don't they know who murdered him?
Murdering Moll, Murdering Moll!"

"For heaven's love, Madam," cried a man beside her, who seemed in such
anxiety concerning her as to pay little heed to the solemn procession
which was now attracting universal attention, "let me take you away!"

But she looked at him with a distraught, unseeing eye, and pulled at
the collar of her dress as if she were choking.

Old Judy's sudden expression of opinion created a small disturbance.
The procession had to halt; a couple of officials good-naturedly
elbowed her on one side.

But she thrust a withered hand expanded in protest over their
shoulders, as the prisoner came forward again.

"God bless ye, honey, God bless ye: it's a wicked world."

He turned towards her; for the l