Page:Tale of the Rebellion of 1745, or, The broken heart (1).pdf/12

                      12 sympathy, but the majority following from curiosity, and others venting their execrations against all traitors. In the midst of the multitude was a hackney coach, following the sledges, and in it was the gentle Fanny Lester, accompanied by a relative and a female friend. They had endeavoured to persuade her from the fearful trial, but she was calm, resolute, and not to be moved, and they yielded to her wish. The coach drew up within thirty yards of the scaffold. Fanny pulled down the window, and leaning over it, she beheld the pile of faggots lighted round the scaffold; she saw the flames rise, and the soldiers form a circle round them. She saw the victims leave the sledges; she looked upon him whom her heart loved, as he mounted the place of death, and his step was firm, his countenance unmoved. She saw him join in prayer with his companions, and her eyes were fixed on him as he flung, papers and his hat among the multitude. She saw the fatal signal given, and the drop fall; she heard the horrid shout that burst from the multitude, but not a muscle of her frame moved. She gazed calmly, as though it had been on a bridal ceremony. She beheld the exe- cutioner begin the barbarities which the law awards to treason; the clothes were torn from the victims, one by one they were cut down, and the finisher of the law, with the horrid knife in his hand, proceeded to lay open their bosoms, and tak- ing out their hearts, flung them on the faggots that blazed around the scaffold. The last spectacle of barbarity was James Dawson; and when the exe- cutioner had plunged the knife in his breast, he raised his heart in his hand, and holding it a moment before the horror-stricken and disgusted multitude, he cast it into the fire, exclaiming, as flung it from him—“God save King George!” Fanny saw this—her eyes became blind-—she heard