rtezan who threatened to destroy his
anticipated happiness. One Saturday night he visited her as usual; and
after a splendid supper, they returned to her chamber. Upon that
occasion, as was afterwards proved on the trial, Dick wore an ample
cloak, and several persons noticed that he seemed to have something
concealed beneath it. His manner towards Ellen and also his words, were
that night unusually caressing and affectionate. What passed in that
chamber, and who perpetrated that murder the Almighty knows--_and,
perhaps, Dick Robinson, if he is still alive, also knows_![A] The next
morning (Sunday,) at a very early hour, smoke was seen to proceed from
Ellen's chamber, and the curtains of her bed were found to have been set
on fire. The flames were with difficulty extinguished, and there in the
half consumed bed, was found the mangled corpse of Ellen Jewett, having
on the side of her head an awful wound, which had evidently been
inflicted by a hatchet. Dick Robinson was nowhere to be found, but in
the garden, near a fence, were discovered his cloak and a bloody
hatchet. With many others, I entered the room in which lay the body of
Ellen, and never shall I forget the horrid spectacle that met my gaze!
There, upon that couch of sin, which had been scathed by fire, lay
blackened the half-burned remains of a once-beautiful woman, whose head
exhibited the dreadful wound which had caused her death. It had plainly
been the murderer's intention to burn down the house in order to destroy
the ghastly evidence of his crime; but fate ordained that the fire
should be discovered and extinguished before the _fatal wound_ became
obliterated. Robinson, as I said before, was tried and pronounced
guiltless of the crime, through the ingenuity of his counsel, who termed
him an "_innocent boy_." The public, however, firmly believed in his
guilt; and the question arises--"If Dick Robinson did not kill Ellen
Jewett, _who did_?" I do not believe that ever before was presented so
shameful an instance of perverted justice, or so striking an
illustration of the "glorious uncertainty of the law." It is rather
singular that Furlong, a grocer, who swore to an _alibi_ in favor of
Robinson, and who was the chief instrument employed to effect the
acquittal of that young man, some time afterwards committed suicide by
drowning, having first declared that his conscience reproached him for
the part which he played at the trial!

The Sabbath upon which this mu