Numbers of persons belonging to the middle and upper classes had engaged seats at windows of those houses commanding a good view of the scaffold.
As the night wore on the throng of persons diminished in numbers. There were, however, many around the apparatus of death when the first few streaks of dawn were visible in the horizon.
In an hour or so after this people debouched from all quarters of the town, hurrying on towards the fatal spot.
As the minutes flew by the multitude increased.
The salesmen of hot potatoes, coffee, pies, and other delicacies, were threading their way through the crowd.
Some loud-voiced fellows began to cry out the last dying speech and confession of the notorious murderer, Gregson, better known as the Bristol Badger. They recited some doggrel lines as they took their way along, which persons of a powerful imagination might suppose to be the production of the wretched man who was about to die.
The windows of the houses commanding a view of the ghastly scene now began to fill with people.
In them too, many of the fair sex were to be seen. The crowd before the scaffold became denser――people, as is usual on occasions of this description, push and elbow each other. An English crowd is bound to do this.
“Where ye’re shovin’ to?” said a tall youth to a brawny looking man, who to all appearance was a navigator. “Jest keep yer elbows to yerself.”
“It aint my fault, yer fool,” said the navigator. “It’s the people behind who’s a pushing.”
“Well, then, you’re strong enough, and can keep ’em back if you like.”
“Don’t you be so cheeky, young fellow,” returned the other; “you aint everybody.”
“Give him a dab in the eye,” said a voice behind.
“I shan’t be at all particular about that if he gives me any more of his cheek.”
“Hush! Order!” ejaculated another of the crowd. “This aint a time to be a-quarrelin’.”
“Pies, all hot――all hot,” shouted out an itinerant vendor of those delicacies. “Here’s some of the right sort, all hot.”
Several persons became purchasers. The morning air had given them an appetite, and they devoured the pies with evident relish.
A man in a black suit, with a white necktie and a low crowned hat, proceeded to distribute tracts to the gaping throng.
In a few moments he got unmercifully chaffed, but heedless of this he proceeded on his mission.