A solid mass of people thronged the space where three roads met and Charing Cross once stood, and above the serried heads rose the black skeleton of the gallows and the executioner's fire crackled and leapt below.  But the sight inspired little horror or pity in the throng: orange girls called their wares, squalid beggars beset beplumed gentlemen, burly ruffians shouldered back prim citizens in their broadcloth and silver buckles; the press, the smell, the noise of shouts and oaths and scraps of songs were much the same as had hailed the Second Charles's entry into London six months before; but the faces were changed, their coarse joviality was gone, and they were inflamed with the frenzy of the bull-fighter, the loathsome curiosity that will not miss one horrid detail, even if the gazer must trample down his own mother to get a better view of the butchery.