He drew a white cap over his eyes and mouth――then he disappeared beneath the gallows. For an instant Gregson stood motionless upon his open tomb. The eyes of Charles Peace were rivetted on the form of his quondam companion. The bolt was withdrawn from below; there was a frightful crash; a black chasm opened beneath the feet of the culprit, whose body swung round and vibrated in the air. Then commenced those struggles, which, we are informed, are merely muscular and involuntary, but which nevertheless are sickening to behold. Charles Peace was in no way moved by the appalling spectacle, albeit he affected to be overcome, and buried his face in his hands. His newly-made acquaintance, however, was visibly affected. The expression of his countenance was indicative of the most profound sorrow. In a few minutes the crowd before the scaffold recovered from the shock. A motionless figure dangled from the rope. It was evident enough to all the spectators that life had fled. Gregson had paid the penalty of his crimes. The crowd swayed to and fro; several groups of persons took their departure in various directions. During the whole of the melancholy proceedings the pickpockets were industriously plying their vocation. More than one of the light-fingered gentry had been given into the custody of the police. This was a common thing at the time of public executions. Full two-thirds of the multitude had in the space of a quarter of an hour bent their way homewards. Many, however, still remained to witness Calcraft’s re-appearance on the scaffold for the purpose of cutting the rope from which the body of the murderer was suspended. Those that remained were, of course, the roughest and least sensitive of the throng. Their thirst for the horrible appeared to be insatiable. The unprincipled scoundrel, Gregson, who, as a just penalty for his manifold crimes, suffered death on the public scaffold, was a ruffian of the very worst type. Educated to crime from his earliest youth, his conscience, which had never been tender, became, as years passed over his felon head, “seared as with a hot iron.” If we were to take a retrospective glance at his career from the day that he first enlisted in the “Devil’s Regiment of the Line” until the last dread sentence of the law was carried out, we should find abundance of evidence to prove that the way of the transgessor was hard. As we have before signified, “A life of crime is always a life of care.” Gregson found to his cost, despite his callous nature, that this axiom was a true one; nevertheless, he was so steeped in vice and immorality that he found it impossible to reform or mend his ways. Throughout his whole life there was not manifested one trace of mercy or generosity such as was attributed to the old highwaymen. On all occasions he displayed a spirit of almost animal ferocity, shown to all who interfered with him.