bustle, animation, and jovial anxiety as the trial for life or death to a
fellow-creature can alone excite in the phlegmatic breasts of the
English. Around the court the crowd thickened with every moment, until
the whole marketplace in which the townhall was situated became one
living mass. The windows of the houses were filled with women, some of
whom had taken that opportunity to make parties to breakfast; and little
round tables, with tea and toast on them, caught the eyes of the grinning
mobists as they gaped impatiently upwards.

"Ben," said a stout yeoman, tossing up a halfpenny, and catching the said
coin in his right hand, which he immediately covered with the left,--
"Ben, heads or tails that Lovett is hanged; heads hanged, tails not, for
a crown."

"Petticoats, to be sure," quoth Ben, eating an apple; and it was heads!

"Damme, you've lost!" cried the yeoman, rubbing his rough hands with
glee.

It would have been a fine sight for Asmodeus, could he have perched on
one of the house tops of the market-place of --------, and looked on the
murmuring and heaving sea of mortality below. Oh! the sight of a crowd
round a court of law or a gibbet ought to make the devil split himself
with laughter.

While the mob was fretting, and pushing, and swearing, and grinning, and
betting, and picking pockets, and trampling feet, and tearing gowns, and
scrambling nearer and nearer to the doors and windows of the court,
Brandon was slowly concluding his abstemious repast, preparatory to
attendance on his judicial duties. His footman entered with a letter.