eight. Along the two main
streets at either end of the cross-way, a living stream had now set in,
rolling towards the marts of gain and business. Carts, coaches, waggons,
trucks, and barrows, forced a passage through the outskirts of the
throng, and clattered onward in the same direction. Some of these
which were public conveyances and had come from a short distance in the
country, stopped; and the driver pointed to the gibbet with his whip,
though he might have spared himself the pains, for the heads of all the
passengers were turned that way without his help, and the coach-windows
were stuck full of staring eyes. In some of the carts and waggons, women
might be seen, glancing fearfully at the same unsightly thing; and even
little children were held up above the people's heads to see what kind
of a toy a gallows was, and learn how men were hanged.

Two rioters were to die before the prison, who had been concerned in
the attack upon it; and one directly afterwards in Bloomsbury Square.
At nine o'clock, a strong body of military marched into the street,
and formed and lined a narrow passage into Holborn, which had been
indifferently kept all night by constables. Through this, another
cart was brought (the one already mentioned had been employed in the
construction of the scaffold), and wheeled up to the prison-gate. These
preparations made, the soldiers stood at ease; the officers lounged
to and fro, in the alley they had made, or talked together at the
scaffold's foot; and the concourse, which had been rapidly augmenting
for some hours, and still received additions every minute, waited with
an impatience which increased with every chime of St Sepulchre's clock,
for twelve at noon.

Up to this time they had been very quiet, comparatively silent, save
when the arrival of some new party at a window, hitherto unoccupied,
gave them something new to look at or to talk of. But, as the hour
approached, a buzz and hum arose, which, deepening every moment, soon
swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the air. No words or even voices
could be distinguished in this clamour, nor did they speak much to each
other; though such as were better informed upon the topic than the rest,
would tell their neighbours, perhaps, that they might know the hangman
when he came out, by his being the shorter one: and that the man who
was to suffer with him was named Hugh: and that it was Barnaby Rudge who
would be hanged in Bloomsbury Square.

The