Near the chapel there stood a clump of ancient sycamores, and among them were two from which the branches had been lopped, and across the tops of these divested trunks, a beam was extended to serve for the gibbet, which obtained for the place the name it bears even unto this day—the Gallowlee—and thereon were usually exposed in chains the bodies of those who had been executed—a barbarous practice, which was common in England until a comparatively recent period.
A crowd of horrible thoughts filled the mind of Bolton; but, above all, two were most palpable before him—the image of Mariette as she had been when he loved her of old, and the gibbet.
He drew near it fearfully.
Behind this ill-omened spot, the landscape to the eastward was level, extending to the seashore; here and there low clumps of coppice and the rocks of Restalrig broke its horizontal outline. The sky was all of a cloudless white tint; there were no stars, there was no moon; but against that cold pale background, the trees and the beam of the gallows stood forth in strong relief and black outline.
On the right towered up the rocky Calton, a dark and undistinguishable mass.
A number of full-fed gleds and monstrous ravens, who built their nests in the sycamores, were perched on the beam of the gallows, where they clapped their dusky wings, and cawed and screamed as the disturber of their feast approached.
Two skeletons were swinging there in the night wind; and the remains of two other beings, evidently fresh from the hands of the doomster, swung beside them. One was headless and handless; but, by its bulk and vast conformation, Hepburn knew the body to be that of Black Hob of Ormiston.
The other, which was of much shorter stature and slighter make, hung by the neck vibrating in the passing wind, which swayed it round and waved its long dark hair.
Fearfully, tremblingly, and scarcely daring to breathe, Hepburn of Bolton drew near it.
One glance sufficed him, and he rushed from the spot to return no more.