many an outlaw, and border-rider of both kingdoms, had
wavered in the wind during the wars, and scarce less hostile truces,
between the two countries. Upon Harabee, in latter days, other executions
had taken place with as little ceremony as compassion; for these frontier
provinces remained long unsettled, and, even at the time of which we
write, were ruder than those in the centre of England.

The postilions drove on, wheeling as the Penrith road led them, round the
verge of the rising ground. Yet still the eyes of Mrs. Dolly Dutton,
which, with the head and substantial person to which they belonged, were
all turned towards the scene of action, could discern plainly the outline
of the gallows-tree, relieved against the clear sky, the dark shade
formed by the persons of the executioner and the criminal upon the light
rounds of the tall aerial ladder, until one of the objects, launched into
the air, gave unequivocal signs of mortal agony, though appearing in the
distance not larger than a spider dependent at the extremity of his
invisible thread, while the remaining form descended from its elevated
situation, and regained with all speed an undistinguished place among the
crowd. This termination of the tragic scene drew forth of course a squall
from Mrs. Dutton, and Jeanie, with instinctive curiosity, turned her head
in the same direction.

The sight of a female culprit in the act of undergoing the fatal
punishment from which her beloved sister had been so recently rescued,
was too much, not perhaps for her nerves, but for her mind and feelings.
She turned her head to the other side of the carriage, with a sensation
of sickness, of loathing, and of fainting. Her female companion
overwhelmed her with questions, with proffers of assistance, with
requests that the carriage might be stopped--that a doctor might be
fetched--that drops might be gotten--that burnt feathers and asafoetida,
fair water, and hartshorn, might be procured, all at once, and without
one instant's delay. Archibald, more calm and considerate, only desired
the carriage to push forward; and it was not till they had got beyond
sight of the fatal spectacle, that, seeing the deadly paleness of
Jeanie's countenance, he stopped the carriage, and jumping out himself,
went in search of the most obvious and most easily procured of Mrs.
Dutton's pharmacopoeia--a draught, namely, of fair water.

While Archibald was absent on this good-natured piece of service, damni