As the morning advanced, the groups were seen hastening to their windows, and about five, the people generally began to pour in, taking their stations in front of the gallows, and upwards towards the Castlehill, while large parties of policemen and patrols successively arrived, to be posted in a strong line in front of the railing--the space left free being much larger than ordinary. Nor were the crowd on this occasion in their ordinary humour of annoying or retarding the constables in the execution of their duty, which they rather viewed as a common cause. From six to seven the concourse increased, thronging every avenue to the High Street, and hurrying in from every quarter, till the whole space, from the Tron to the Bow, threatened to be too small to hold them. Nor were the masses entirely composed of the class that usually attend such scenes. There were included, especially about the windows, not only of the dingy houses of the Lawnmarket, but also of the County Buildings, great numbers of well-dressed ladies, imparting a variety, scarcely to have been expected, to the scene, already otherwise picturesque. After seven, and when the rain, which had been excessive some hours before, began to cease, the crowd became rapidly larger still, and at eight, the entire area between the two points we have mentioned presented the aspect of an immense and closely-wedged mass of human beings, all still and watchful, never before seen there, except, perhaps, on the occasion of the King's visit. All round the scaffold you saw the crowd was composed of men--gradually outwards giving place to women, many of whom, being pressed by the dense mass around them, sent forth screams of distress; and where the pressure got less, chiefly about the circumference, the numbers of that sex were still considerable--the entire assemblage, as is the case where density is great, being moved, as it seemed, all throughout by the same impulse, coming from whatever direction. The numbers at this time were computed at 20,000 or 30,000. But there was one feature of this crowd which was more extraordinary than its extent or composition. In ordinary cases, at least in Scotland, there is usually manifested sympathy for the sufferer, or at least a sedate and solemn manner, as if the occasion were melancholy and instructive. All this was changed now. There was on every face an expression of something approaching to joy, as if the heart felt it was to get quit of a painful feeling of revenge, and that the relief was near. It is now eight,--St Giles's rolls forth the sounds, and every noise is stilled.