The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less frequentby degrees, until silence was scarcely broken save by the bells inchurch towers, marking the progress--softer and more stealthywhile the city slumbered--of that Great Watcher with the hoaryhead, who never sleeps or rests. In the brief interval of darknessand repose which feverish towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed;and those who awoke from dreams lay listening in their beds, andlonged for dawn, and wished the dead of the night were past.
Into the street outside the jail"s main wall, workmen camestraggling at this solemn hour, in groups of two or three, andmeeting in the centre, cast their tools upon the ground and spokein whispers. Others soon issued from the jail itself, bearing ontheir shoulders planks and beams: these materials being all broughtforth, the rest bestirred themselves, and the dull sound of hammersbegan to echo through the stillness.
Here and there among this knot of labourers, one, with a lantern ora smoky link, stood by to light his fellows at their work; and byits doubtful aid, some might be dimly seen taking up the pavementof the road, while others held great upright posts, or fixed themin the holes thus made for their reception. Some dragged slowlyon, towards the rest, an empty cart, which they brought rumblingfrom the prison-yard; while others erected strong barriers acrossthe street. All were busily engaged. Their dusky figures movingto and fro, at that unusual hour, so active and so silent, mighthave been taken for those of shadowy creatures toiling at midnighton some ghostly unsubstantial work, which, like themselves, wouldvanish with the first gleam of day, and leave but morning mist andvapour.
While it was yet dark, a few lookers-on collected, who had plainlycome there for the purpose and intended to remain: even those whohad to pass the spot on their way to some other place, lingered,and lingered yet, as though the attraction of that wereirresistible. Meanwhile the noise of saw and mallet went onbriskly, mingled with the clattering of boards on the stonepavement of the road, and sometimes with the workmen"s voices asthey called to one another. Whenever the chimes of theneighbouring church were heard--and that was every quarter of anhour--a strange sensation, instantaneous and indescribable, butperfectly obvious, seemed to pervade them all.
Gradually, a faint brightness appeared in the east, and the air,which had been very warm all through the night, felt cool andchilly. Though there was no daylight yet, the darkness wasdiminished, and the stars looked pale. The prison, which had beena mere black mass with little shape or form, put on its usualaspect; and ever and anon a solitary watchman could be seen uponits roof, stopping to look down upon the preparations in thestreet. This man, from forming, as it were, a part of the jail,and knowing or being supposed to know all that was passing within,became an object of as much interest, and was as eagerly lookedfor, and as awfully pointed out, as if he had been a spirit.
By and by, the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses withtheir signboards and inscriptions, stood plainly out, in the dullgrey morning. Heavy stage waggons crawled from the inn-yardopposite; and travellers peeped out; and as they rolled sluggishlyaway, cast many a backward look towards the jail. And now, thesun"s first beams came glancing into the street; and the night"swork, which, in its various stages and in the varied fancies of thelookers-on had taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form--ascaffold, and a gibbet.
As the warmth of the cheerful day began to shed itself upon thescanty crowd, the murmur of tongues was heard, shutters were thrownopen, and blinds drawn up, and those who had slept in rooms overagainst the prison, where places to see the execution were let athigh prices, rose hastily from their beds. In some of the houses,people were busy taking out the window-sashes for the betteraccommodation of spectators; in others, the spectators were alreadyseated, and beguiling the time with cards, or drink, or jokes amongthemselves. Some had purchased seats upon the house-tops, andwere already crawling to their stations from parapet and garret-window. Some were yet bargaining for good places, and stood inthem in a state of indecision: gazing at the slowly-swelling crowd,and at the workmen as they rested listlessly against the scaffold-affectingto listen with indifference to the proprietor"s eulogy ofthe commanding view his house afforded, and the surpassingcheapness of his terms.
A fairer morning never shone. From the roofs and upper stories ofthese buildings, the spires of city churches and the greatcathedral dome were visible, rising up beyond the prison, into theblue sky, and clad in the colour of light summer clouds, andshowing in the clear atmosphere their every scrap of tracery andfretwork, and every niche and loophole. All was brightness andpromise, excepting in the street below, into which (for it yet layin shadow) the eye looked down as into a dark trench, where, in themidst of so much life, and hope, and renewal of existence, stoodthe terrible instrument of death. It seemed as if the very sunforbore to look upon it.
But it was better, grim and sombre in the shade, than when, the daybeing more advanced, it stood confessed in the full glare and gloryof the sun, with its black paint blistering, and its noosesdangling in the light like loathsome garlands. It was better inthe solitude and gloom of midnight with a few forms clusteringabout it, than in the freshness and the stir of morning: the centreof an eager crowd. It was better haunting the street like aspectre, when men were in their beds, and influencing perchance thecity"s dreams, than braving the broad day, and thrusting itsobscene presence upon their waking senses.