es that looked on to the market. They were
eager to secure their points of vantage from which to view that
morning's spectacle.

The light came slowly. It was a frosty morning. At seven o'clock a
thin vapor hung in the air and waved to and fro like a veil. It
blurred the face of the houses, softened their sharp outlines, and
seemed at some moments to carry them away into the distance. The sun
rose soft and white as an autumn moon behind a scarf of cloud.

At half past seven the Market Place was thronged. On every inch of the
ground, on every balcony, in every window, over every portico, along
the roofs of the houses north, south, east, and west, clinging to the
chimney-stacks, hanging high up on the pyramidical turrets of the
guard-house itself, astride the arms of the old cross, peering from
between the battlements of the cathedral tower and the musket lancets
of the castle, were crowded, huddled, piled, the spectators of that
morning's tragedy.

What a motley throng! Some in yellow and red, some in black; men,
women, and children lifted shoulder-high. Some with pale faces and
bloodshot eyes, some with rubicund complexion and laughing lips, some
bantering as if at a fair, some on the ground hailing their fellows on
the roofs. What a spectacle were they in themselves!

There at the northeast of the Market Place, between Scotch Street amid
English Street, were half a hundred men and boys in blouses, seated on
the overhanging roof of the wooden shambles. They were shouting sorry
jests at half a dozen hoydenish women who looked out of the windows of
a building raised on pillars over a well, known as Carnaby's Folly.

On the roof of the guard-house stood five or six soldiers in red
coats. One fellow, with a pipe between his lips, leaned over the
parapet to kiss his hand to a little romping serving-wench who giggled
at him from behind a curtain in a house opposite. There was an open
carriage in the very heart of that throng below. Seated within it was
a stately gentleman with a gray peaked beard, and dressed in black
velvet cloak and doublet, having lace collar and ruffles; and side by
side with him was a delicate young maiden muffled to the throat in
fur. The morning was bitterly cold, but even this frail flower of
humanity had been drawn forth by the business that was now at hand.
Where is she now, and what?

A spectacle indeed, and for the eye of the mind a spectacle no less
various than for the bodily organ.

Bo