This is not altogether the sheer _poetica licentia_, that common readers may suppose it to be. Hubbard, Mass. Hist. Coll. xv. 77, gives the following version, after having spoken of the theft--"the company, as some report pretended, in way of satisfaction, to punish him, that did the theft, but in his stead, hanged a poor, decrepit, old man, that was unserviceable to the company, and burthensome to keep alive, which was the ground of the story, with which the merry gentleman, that wrote the poem, called Hudibras, did, in his poetical fancy, make so much sport. Yet the inhabitants of Plymouth tell the story much otherwise, as if the person hanged was really guilty of stealing, as may be were many of the rest, and if they were driven by necessity to content the Indians, at that time to do justice, there were some of Mr. Weston's company living, it is possible it might be executed not on him that most deserved, but on him that could be best spared, or was not likely to live long, if let alone." Morton published his English Canaan, in 1637, and relates the story Part iii. ch. iv. p. 108, but he states, that it was a proposal only, which was very well received, but being opposed by one person, "they hanged up the real offender." As the condemned draw nigh unto death--the scaffold--the gibbet--it would be natural to suppose, that every avenue to the heart would be effectually closed, against the entrance of all impressions, but those of terrible solemnity; yet no common truth is more clearly established, than that ill-timed levity, vanity, pride, and an almost inexplicable pleasure, arising from a consciousness of being the observed of all observers, have been exhibited, by men, on their way to the scaffold, and even with the halter about their necks. The story is well worn out, of the wretched man, who, observing the crowd eagerly rushing before him, on his way to the gallows, exclaimed, "gentlemen, why so fast--there can be no sport, till I come!" In Jesse's memoirs of George Selwyn, i. 345, it is stated, that John Wisket, who committed a most atrocious burglary, in 1763, the evidence of which was perfectly clear and conclusive, insisted upon wearing a large white cockade, on the scaffold, as a token of his innocence, and was swung off, bearing that significant appendage. In the same volume, page 117, it is said of the famous Lord Lovat, that, in Scotland, a story is current, that, when upon his way to the Tower, after his condemnation, an old woman thrust her head into the window of the coach, which conveyed him, and exclaimed--"_You old rascal, I begin to think you will be hung at last_." To which he instantly replied--"_You old b----h, I begin to think I shall_."