Some crows were beginning to perch on the elms, or flying round the body with screaming beaks and flapping wings.
They came from an adjacent gallows on the Lea.
CHAPTER LVI.
THE TEMPTATION.
"Oh! Harpalus (thus would he say),
Unhappiest under sunne;
The cause of thine unhappy day
By love was first begunne;
As easy 'twere for to convert
The frost into a flame,
As for to turn a froward heart,
Whom thou so fain would'st frame."
Reliq. of English Poetry, 1557.
The clock struck in the steeple of St. Giles. Jane heard it distinctly in her prison. Each note was wafted towards her as with a solemn note of lamentation, from the vast and broad mouth of the great church bell. Every stroke vibrated painfully through her heart.
It tolled eleven!
She had but one hour to live. One hour! and then——
A loud and palpable murmur, as of many thousand voices, arose in the city; her heart for a moment died within her; she covered her face with her hand and burst out into a passionate prayer to Heaven—for she knew that, encompassed as she was by sorrow and despair, and engirdled by that strong tower, the eyes of God were upon her.
The broad flame of a torch, which was stuck in a tin sconce that hung upon the wall, cast a livid glare on the bare masonry of the vaulted chamber, on her kneeling figure, on her dark and disordered hair, on her white hands, and her whiter forehead.