The chaplain enters the desk immediately under the pulpit, which, attached to the blank wall, faces the communion-table. _He_, also, casts an ominous glance at the black bench before him, in the centre of the floor, to which all faces are directed, amidst moody and troubled silence. At length a door on the left is heard being unbolted; a turnkey enters, followed by the great criminal--one whose name was ringing in the ears of the public--one on whom every eye is instantly fixed with sickening intensity. It is Courvoisier--the monster who, a few weeks before, had barbarously murdered his sleeping lord!--He was led to his seat, a glass of water being placed near him, in case of his faintness, and on one side of him sate a turnkey. Courvoisier knelt down; and then, a prayer-book having been given him, (which he held in an untrembling hand,) took his seat, not far from the reading-desk, covering his eyes for a few moments with his left hand. His demeanour was signally calm and self-possessed, and his motions were deliberate. He was a man about twenty-four years of age. His countenance wore such an expression of pensive good-nature and docility, as rendered it a consolatory reflection that he had unequivocally and spontaneously confessed the fiendish act of which the law had pronounced him guilty, and for which, under holy sanctions, it was on the morrow to take away his life.[3] Yes--there he sate, where we had seen sitting, also, his blood-stained predecessor Greenacre; and, moreover, Fauntleroy the forger; also a young banker's clerk--a widowed mother's sole support, her only child--for forging a trifling check. Alas, alas! how he wept during the whole service!--but how calmly he behaved the next morning on the gallows!