The shouts swelled into a deep roar of execration, as the sledge on which the prisoner lay bound neared the place of execution, and Richard Harrison, struggling to keep his place as close to the victim as he might, thought with grim bitterness of the day when this same mob, silent and cowed, had seen General Harrison ride back from the scaffold at Whitehall. "The dastards dared not lift a finger then, though it was for their liberty we struck the blow. And this is the reward the people of England have reserved for their deliverers!" muttered Dick. But no bitterness nor resentment darkened the prisoner's face, never had his glance been more serenely triumphant, and as he pressed nearer, Dick could catch above the yells and hootings, the rapturous words which he uttered, his hands and eyes raised to heaven. "I bless the Lord," he said, "it's a day of joy for my soul. I do find so much of the joy of the Lord coming in, that I am carried far above the fear of death, going to receive that glorious crown which Christ hath prepared." And when one fellow cried out jeeringly, "Where is now your Good Old Cause?" he, with a cheerful smile, clapped his hand on his breast saying, "Here it is, and I am going to seal it with my blood." Yet even the most callous were silent for a moment as the dying man spoke his last words from the ladder of the gallows, asserting once more that he was wrongfully charged with murder and bloodshed. "I must tell you I have kept a good conscience towards God, neither did I act maliciously toward any person, but as I judged them to be enemies to God and his people." And when his nephew came near for a last farewell, he repeated once more-- "It's hard for most to follow God in such a dispensation as this, and yet my Lord and Master is as sweet and glorious to me now as He was in the time of my greatest prosperity;" and then, embracing his friends in farewell, he committed his spirit into the hands of God and was, the bystanders declared, "not so much thrown off the ladder by the executioner, but went readily off himself." The butchery of the sentence for treason was carried out to the bitter end, yet of the onlookers there were but a few women who sobbed hysterically or fainted, and but one or two men who pushed their way back, sick with the sight and smell of the shambles. A smartly dressed little gentleman, with a carefully curled wig, had forced his way as near as possible to the place of execution. His bold curious eyes let nothing pass unnoticed, yet when the torture of the half-dead victim was ended even his lips were somewhat white, though he shouted and waved his hat with the loyal rabble who cheered and cheered again at the headsman's final speech: "So perish all King Charles's enemies."