ing, fell down in a fit. "Courage, bold Barnaby, what care we?
A man can die but once. If you wake in the night, sing that out lustily,
and fall asleep again."

The time wore on. Five o'clock had struck--six--seven--and eight. They
were to die at noon, and in the crowd without it was said they could
tell 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.

At the first stroke of twelve the prison bell began to toll, and the
three were brought forth into the yard together.

Barnaby was the only one who had washed or trimmed himself that morning.
He still wore the broken peacock's feathers in his hat; and all his
usual scraps of finery were carefully disposed about his person.

"What cheer, Barnaby?", cried Hugh. "Don't be downcast, lad. Leave that
to _him_," he added, with a nod in the direction of Dennis, held up
between two men.

"Bless you!" cried Barnaby, "I'm not frightened, Hugh. I'm quite happy.
Look at me! Am I afraid to die? Will they see _me_ tremble?"

"I'd say this," said Hugh, wringing Barnaby by the hand, and looking
round at the officers and functionaries gathered in the yard, "that if I
had ten lives to lose I'd lay them all down to save this one. This one
that will be lost through mine!"

"Not through you," said Barnaby mildly. "Don't say that. You were not to
blame. You have always been very good to me. Hugh, we shall know what
makes the stars shine _now_!"

Hugh spoke no more, but moved onward in his place with a careless air,
listening as he went to the service for the dead. As soon as he had
passed the door, his miserable associate was carried out; and the crowd
beheld the rest. Barnaby would have mounted the steps at the same time,
but he was restrained, as he was to undergo the sentence elsewhere.

It was only just when the cart was starting that the courier reached the
jail with the reprieve. All night Gabriel Varden and his friends had
been at work; they had gone to the young Prince of Wales, and even to
the ante-chamber of the king himself. Successful, at last, in awakening
an interest in his favour, they had an interview with the minister in
his bed as late as eight o'clock that morning. The result of a searching
inquiry was that, between eleven and twelve o'clock, a free pardon to
Barnaby Rudge was made out and signed, and Gabriel Varden had the