There was a force of constables round the pillory. As it appeared immediately afterwards, it was insufficient. They formed a circle standing shoulder to shoulder, to keep back the crowd and to preserve an open space round the scaffold. It is a merciful plan because the greater the distance, the better is the prisoner's chance. The prisoners were brought in a cart. It was recognised by the crowd as a cart used for flogging unfortunates, and there were jokes on the subject, perhaps the hitching of shoulders, as it passed. It was guarded by a force of constables armed with clubs; not that they feared a rescue, but that they feared a rush of the crowd and the tearing of the prisoners to pieces. I was standing, I say, on the highest doorstep of Slaughter's Coffee House, the windows of which were full of men looking on. Looking thus over the heads of the people, I saw that the driver and the prisoner Probus were covered already with filth and with rotten eggs. The former cursed the people. 'Why can't you wait--you?' he cried as the eggs flew about his head or broke upon his face. Mr. Probus sat on the bench bowed and doubled up. He showed no fear: he was as one who is utterly broken up, and in despair: he had lost his money--all his money: the work of his life. That was all he cared for. He was disgraced and imprisoned--he had lost his money. He was going to be pelted in the pillory--he had lost his money--nothing else mattered. To a revengeful man this day's work was revenge indeed, ample and satisfying, if revenge ever can satisfy. I do not think it can: one would want to repeat it every day: the man in the Italian Poem who gnaws his enemy's head can never have enough of his cruel and horrid revenge. I hope, however, that no one will think that I rejoiced over sufferings, terrors, and pain unspeakable; even though they were deserved. If Mr. Probus showed callousness and insensibility extraordinary, his companion behaved in exactly an opposite manner. For he had thrown himself down in the bottom of the cart, and there lay writhing while the execrations of the people followed the cart. When the procession arrived at the pillory it took six men to drag him out. He covered his face with his hands: he wept--the tears ran down his cheeks: he clung to the constables; it took a quarter of an hour before they had him up the steps and on the platform: it took another ten minutes before he was placed in the machine, his face turned towards the crowd on the north side with his helpless hands struck through the holes. As for the other he stood facing the south. When both the miserable men were ready the under-sheriff and the constables ducked their heads and ran for their lives from the stage down the ladder and waited under cover.