ascertained. This was accordingly done, the gibbet being
erected at the highest point crossed by the line, on a stretch
of beautiful smooth elastic turf, among prehistoric
earthworks--a spot commanding one of the finest and most
extensive views in Southern England. The day appointed for
the execution brought the greatest concourse of people ever
witnessed at that lofty spot, at all events since prehistoric
times. If some of the ancient Britons had come out of their
graves to look on, seated on their earthworks, they would have
probably rubbed their ghostly hands together and remarked to
each other that it reminded them of old times. All classes
were there, from the nobility and gentry, on horseback and in
great coaches in which they carried their own provisions, to
the meaner sort who had trudged from all the country round on
foot, and those who had not brought their own food and beer
were catered for by traders in carts. The crowd was a
hilarious one, and no doubt that grand picnic on the beacon
was the talk of they country for a generation or longer.
The two wretches having been hanged in chains on one gibbet
were left to be eaten by ravens, crows, and magpipes, and
dried by sun and winds, until, after long years, the swinging,
creaking skeletons with their chains on fell to pieces and
were covered with the turf, but the gibbet itself was never
removed.

Then a strange thing happened. The sheep on a neighbouring
farm became thin and sickly and yielded little wool and died
before their time. No remedies availed and the secret of
their malady could not be discovered; but it went on so long
that the farmer was threatened with utter ruin. Then, by