arrived at
a large open space, thronged with people whose dress and appearance
bespoke them from the country. They were all conversing in a low,
murmuring tone, and looking up from time to time towards a massive
building of dark granite, which I had only to glance at to guess was
Newgate. Our pace slackened to a walk as we entered the crowd; and while
we moved slowly along, I was struck by the eager and excited faces I saw
on every side. It could be no common occasion which impressed that vast
multitude with the one character of painful anxiety I beheld.

As they stood gazing with upturned faces at the frowning portals of the
jail, the deep, solemn tolling of a bell rung out at the moment, and
as its sad notes vibrated through the air, it seemed to strike with
a mournful power on every heart in the crowd. In an instant, too, the
windows of all the houses were thronged with eager faces,--even the
parapets were crowded; and while every sound was hushed, each eye was
turned in one direction. I followed with my own whither the others were
bent, and beheld above my head the dark framework of the "drop," covered
with black cloth, above which a piece of rope swung back-. wards and
forwards with the wind. The narrow door behind was closed; but it was
clear that each second that stole by was bringing some wretched criminal
closer to his awful doom.

As we neared the entrance, the massive doors were opened on a signal
from a policeman on the box of the carriage, and we drove inside the
gloomy vestibule. It was only then, as the heavy door banged behind me,
that my heart sank. Up to that moment a mingled sense of wrong, and a
feeling of desperate courage, had nerved me; but suddenly a cold chill
ran through my veins, my knees smote each other, and fear such as till
then I never knew crept over me. The carriage-door was now opened, the
steps lowered, and Barton descending first, addressed a few words to a
person near him, whom he called Mr. Gregg.

It was one of those moments in life in which every passing look, every
chance word, every stir, every gesture, are measured up, and remembered
ever after. And I recollect now how, as I stepped from the carriage, a
feeling of shame passed across me lest the bystanders should mark my
fear, and what a relief I experienced on finding that my presence was
unnoticed; and then the instant after, that very same neglect--that
cold, cold indifference to me--smote as heavily on my spirits, and I