semblance
of respect; and though their last night upon earth might have been
devoted to a joyous company, they did not withhold their ear from the
Bellman's Chant. As twelve o'clock approached--their last midnight upon
earth--they would interrupt the most spirited discourse, they would
check the tour of the mellowest bottle to listen to the solemn doggerel.
'All you that in the condemn'd hole do lie,' groaned the Bellman of
St. Sepulchre's in his duskiest voice, and they who held revel in
the condemned hole prayed silence of their friends for the familiar
cadences:

All you that in the condemn'd hole do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die,
Watch all and pray, the hour is drawing near,
That you before th' Almighty must appear.
Examine well yourselves, in time repent
That you may not t' eternal flames be sent;
And when St. Pulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord above have mercy on your souls.
Past twelve o'clock!

Even if this warning voice struck a momentary terror into their
offending souls, they were up betimes in the morning, eager to pay their
final debt. Their journey from Newgate to Tyburn was a triumph, and
their vanity was unabashed at the droning menaces of the Ordinary. At
one point a chorus of maidens cast wreaths upon their way, or pinned
nosegays in their coats, that they might not face the executioner
unadorned. At the Crown Tavern they quaffed their last glass of ale, and
told the landlord with many a leer and smirk that they would pay him on
their way back. Though gravity was asked, it was not always given; but
in the Eighteenth Century courage was seldom wanting. To the common
citizen a violent death was (and is) the worst of horrors; to the
ancient highwayman it was the odd trick lost in the game of life. And
the highwayman endured the rope, as the practised gambler loses his
estate, without blenching. One there was, who felt his leg tremble in
his own despite: wherefore he stamped it upon the ground so violently,
that in other circumstances he would have roared with pain, and he left
the world without a tremor. In this spirit Cranmer burnt his recreant
right hand, and in either case the glamour of a unique occasion was a
stimulus to courage.

But not even this brilliant treatment of accessories availed to save the
highway from disrepute; indeed, it had become the profitless pursuit
of braggarts and loafers, long before the abolition of the