w. There was something shocking in the quietness
and the glory of the day--such a day as many that I had spent in the
meadows of Hare Street, or in the high woods--faced as it was with this
dreadful thing against the blue sky, and the five figures beneath it,
like figures in a frieze, and the smoke of the cauldron that drifted up
continually or brought a reek of tar to my nostrils. And, again, all
this would pass; and I would feel that it was not hell but heaven that
waited; and that all was but as a thin veil, a little shadow of death,
that hung between me and the unimaginable glories; and that at a word
all would dissolve away and Christ come and this world be ended. So,
then, the minutes passed for me: I said my _Paternoster_ and _Ave_ and
_Credo_ and _De Profundis_, over and over again; praying that the
passage of those men might be easy, and that their deaths might be as
sacrifices both for themselves and for the country. I was beyond fearing
for myself now; I was in a kind of madness of pity and longing. And, at
the last I saw Mr. Whitbread raise his head and look at the Sheriff.

There rose then, as he made a sign, a great murmur from all the crowd. I
had thought that they would have been impatient, but they were not; and
had kept silence very well; and I think that this spectacle of the five
men praying had touched many hearts there. Now, however, when the end
approached, they seemed to awaken again, and to look for it; and they
began to move their heads about to see what was done, so that the crowd
was like a field of wheat when the wind goes over it.

Then fell a horrible thing.

There broke out suddenly a cry, that was like a trumpet suddenly
sounding after drums--of a different kind altogether from the murmuring
that was before. I turned my head whence it came, and saw a great
confusion break out in the outskirts of the crowd. Then I saw a horse's
head, and a man's bare head behind it, whisk out from the trees in the
direction of the park, and come like a streak across the open ground.
As the galloper came nearer, I could see that he was spurring as if for
life. Then once more a great roar broke out everywhere--

"A pardon! a pardon!" And so it was.

The crowd opened out to let the man through; and immediately he was at
the gallows, and handing the paper to the sheriff. A roar was going up
now on all sides; but as in dumb play I could see that Mr. How was
speaking to the priests who still stood as before