and hour during three
successive days, after which he calmly awaited the result.

In the mean time, certain circumstances came to light, which not only
developed many cruel and profligate traits in his disposition, but also
enabled the worthy inhabitants of the town to ascertain several facts
relating to his connections, which in no small degree astonished them.
The candid and modest female whose murder and robbery had been planned
by Nell M'Collum, resided with him as his wife; at least if he did not
acknowledge her as such, no person who had an opportunity of witnessing
her mild and gentle deportment, ever for a moment conceived her capable
of living with him in any other character, his conduct to her, however,
was brutal in the extreme, nor was his open and unmanly cruelty lessened
by the misfortune of her having lost the money which he had accumulated.
With Nell M'Collum he was also acquainted, for he had given orders that
she should be admitted to him whenever she deemed it necessary. Nell,
though now at large, found her motions watched with a vigilance which no
ingenuity on her part, could baffle. She knew this, and was resolved by
caution to overreach those who dogged her so closely. Her intimacy with
the Dead Boxer threw a shade of still deeper mystery around her own
character and his. Both were supposed to be capable of entering into
evil communion with supernatural beings, and both, of course, were
looked upon with fear and hatred, modified, to be sure, by the
peculiarity of their respective situations.

Let not our readers, however, suppose that young Lamh Laudher's disgrace
was altogether lost in the wide-spread fame of the Dead Boxer. His high
reputation for generous and manly feeling had given him too strong a
hold upon the hearts of all who know him, to be at once discarded by
them from public conversation as an indifferent person. His conduct
filled them with wonder, it is true; but although the general tone of
feeling respecting the robbery was decidedly in his favor, yet there
still existed among the public, particularly in the faction that was
hostile to him, enough of doubt, openly expressed, to render it a duty
to avoid him; particularly when this formidable suspicion was joined to
the notorious fact of his cowardice in the rencounter with Meehaul Neil.
Both subjects were therefore discussed with probably an equal interest;
but it is quite certain that the rumor of Lamh Laudher's cowardice would
al