well, God's will be done; I
care not for life; but still an ignominious death--to go out of the
world like a dog, and that too without finding out who is my father."
And I put my fettered hands up and pressed my burning brow, and remained
in a sort of apathetic sullen mood, until I was startled by the opening
of the door, and the appearance of the constables. They led me out
among a crowd, through which, with difficulty, they could force their
way, and followed by the majority of the population of Hounslow, who
made their complimentary remarks upon the _footpad_, I was brought
before the magistrates. The large stout man was then called up to give
his evidence, and deposed as follows:--

"That he was walking to Hounslow from Brentford, whither he had been
to purchase some clothes, when he was accosted by two fellows in
smock-frocks, one of whom carried a bundle in his left hand. They
asked him what o'clock it was; and he took out his watch to tell them,
when he received a blow from the one with the bundle (this one, sir,
said he, pointing to me), on the back of his head; at the same time
the other (the wounded man who was now in custody) snatched his
watch.--That at the time he had purchased his clothes at Brentford,
he had also bought a bag of shot, fourteen pounds weight, which he
had, for the convenience of carrying, tied up with the clothes in the
bundle, and perceiving that he was about to be robbed, he had swung his
bundle round his head, and with the weight of the shot, had knocked
down the man who had snatched at his watch. He then turned to the other
(me) who backed from him, and struck at him with his stick. (The stick
was here produced, and when I cast my eye on it, I was horrified to
perceive that it was the very stick which I had bought of the Jew, for
three-pence, to carry my bundle on.) He had closed in with me, and was
wresting the stick out of my hand, when the other man, who had recovered
his legs, again attacked him with another stick. In the scuffle he had
obtained my stick, and I had wrested from him his bundle, with which,
as soon as he had knocked down my partner, I ran off. That he beat my
partner until he was insensible, and then found that I had left my own
bundle, which in the affray I had thrown on one side." He then made the
best of his way to Hounslow to give the information. His return and
finding me with the other man is already known to the readers.

The next evidence who came forward w