Through this, another
cart was brought (the one already mentioned had been employed in the
construction of the scaffold), and wheeled up to the prison-gate. These
preparations made, the soldiers stood at ease; the officers lounged
to and fro, in the alley they had made, or talked together at the
scaffold's foot; and the concourse, which had been rapidly augmenting
for some hours, and still received additions every minute, waited with
an impatience which increased with every chime of St Sepulchre's clock,
for twelve at noon.
Up to this time they had been very quiet, comparatively silent, save
when the arrival of some new party at a window, hitherto unoccupied,
gave them something new to look at or to talk of. But, as the hour
approached, a buzz and hum arose, which, deepening every moment, soon
swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the air. No words or even voices
could be distinguished in this clamour, nor did they speak much to each
other; though such as were better informed upon the topic than the rest,
would tell their neighbours, perhaps, that they might know the hangman
when he came out, by his being the shorter one: and that the man who
was to suffer with him was named Hugh: and that it was Barnaby Rudge who
would be hanged in Bloomsbury Square.
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