r, and it please your noble Provostship," answered one
of the clowns; "he was the very first blasphemously to cut down the
rascal whom his Majesty's justice most deservedly hung up, as we told
your worship."

"I'll swear by God, and Saint Martin of Tours, to have seen him with
their gang," said another, "when they pillaged our metairie [a small
farm]."

"Nay, but," said a boy, "yonder heathen was black, and this youth is
fair; yonder one had short curled hair, and this hath long fair locks."

"Ay, child," said the peasant, "and perhaps you will say yonder one had
a green coat and this a gray jerkin. But his worship, the Provost, knows
that they can change their complexions as easily as their jerkins, so
that I am still minded he was the same."

"It is enough that you have seen him intermeddle with the course of the
King's justice, by attempting to recover an executed traitor," said the
officer.--"Trois Eschelles and Petit Andre, dispatch."

"Stay, signior officer!" exclaimed the youth in mortal agony; "hear me
speak--let me not die guiltlessly--my blood will be required of you by
my countrymen in this world, and by Heaven's justice in that which is to
follow."

"I will answer for my actions in both," said the Provost, coldly, and
made a sign with his left hand to the executioners; then, with a smile
of triumphant malice, touched with his forefinger his right arm, which
hung suspended in a scarf, disabled probably by the blow which Durward
had dealt him that morning.

"Miserable, vindictive wretch!" answered Quentin, persuaded by that
action that private revenge was the sole motive of this man's rigour,
and that no mercy whatever was to be expected from him.

"The poor youth raves," said the functionary: "speak a word of comfort
to him ere he make his transit, Trois Eschelles; thou art a comfortable
man in such cases when a confessor is not to be had. Give him one minute
of ghostly advice, and dispatch matters in the next. I must proceed on
the rounds.--Soldiers, follow me!"

The Provost rode on, followed by his guard, excepting two or three, who
were left to assist in the execution. The unhappy youth cast after him
an eye almost darkened by despair, and thought he heard in every tramp
of his horse's retreating hoofs the last slight chance of his safety
vanish. He looked around him in agony, and was surprised, even in that
moment, to see the stoical indifference of his fellow prisoners. They
had previously tes