The line dividing
the two parishes had always been a doubtful one; now they were
going to take the benefit of the doubt and let Coombe hang its
own miscreants!
As neither side would yield, the higher authorities were
compelled to settle the matter for them, and ordered the cost
to be divided between the two parishes, the gibbet to be
erected on the boundary line, as far as it could be
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.
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