well,' he answered, 'for what else did we bring him
here? Let's have our friends, master, and you shall have your friend. Is
that fair, lads?'

The mob replied to him with a loud Hurrah!

'You see how it is, sir?' cried Varden. 'Keep 'em out, in King George's
name. Remember what I have said. Good night!'

There was no more parley. A shower of stones and other missiles
compelled the keeper of the jail to retire; and the mob, pressing on,
and swarming round the walls, forced Gabriel Varden close up to the
door.

In vain the basket of tools was laid upon the ground before him, and
he was urged in turn by promises, by blows, by offers of reward, and
threats of instant death, to do the office for which they had brought
him there. 'No,' cried the sturdy locksmith, 'I will not!'

He had never loved his life so well as then, but nothing could move him.
The savage faces that glared upon him, look where he would; the cries of
those who thirsted, like wild animals, for his blood; the sight of men
pressing forward, and trampling down their fellows, as they strove to
reach him, and struck at him above the heads of other men, with axes and
with iron bars; all failed to daunt him. He looked from man to man, and
face to face, and still, with quickened breath and lessening colour,
cried firmly, 'I will not!'

Dennis dealt him a blow upon the face which felled him to the ground. He
sprung up again like a man in the prime of life, and with blood upon his
forehead, caught him by the throat.

'You cowardly dog!' he said: 'Give me my daughter. Give me my daughter.'

They struggled together. Some cried 'Kill him,' and some (but they were
not near enough) strove to trample him to death. Tug as he would at the
old man's wrists, the hangman could not force him to unclench his hands.

'Is this all the return you make me, you ungrateful monster?' he
articulated with great difficulty, and with many oaths.

'Give me my daughter!' cried the locksmith, who was now as fierce as
those who gathered round him: 'Give me my daughter!'

He was down again, and up, and down once more, and buffeting with a
score of them, who bandied him from hand to hand, when one tall fellow,
fresh from a slaughter-house, whose dress and great thigh-boots smoked
hot with grease and blood, raised a pole-axe, and swearing a horrible
oath, aimed it at the old man's uncovered head. At that instant, and in
the very act, he fell himself, as if struck by lightning, and o