mitted in his son's dwelling
that afternoon. The son and daughter-in-law (noted too for their
attention to the helpless father) had been a-field among all the
neighbours the whole of the time. In short, it never was accounted for;
and left a painful impression on many minds.

I will answer for it, the Detective Police would have ascertained every
fact relating to it in a week.

This story from its mystery was painful, but had no consequences to make
it tragical. The next which I shall tell (and although traditionary,
these anecdotes of disappearances which I relate in this paper are
correctly repeated, and were believed by my informants to be strictly
true), had consequences, and melancholy ones too. The scene of it is in
a little country-town, surrounded by the estates of several gentlemen of
large property. About a hundred years ago there lived in this small town
an attorney, with his mother and sister. He was agent for one of the
squires near, and received rents for him on stated days, which of course
were well known. He went at these times to a small public-house, perhaps
five miles from ----, where the tenants met him, paid their rents, and
were entertained at dinner afterwards. One night he did not return from
this festivity. He never returned. The gentleman whose agent he was,
employed the Dogberrys of the time to find him, and the missing cash;
the mother, whose support and comfort he was, sought him with all the
perseverance of faithful love. But he never returned; and by-and-by the
rumour spread that he must have gone abroad with the money; his mother
heard the whispers all around her, and could not disprove it; and so her
heart broke, and she died. Years after, I think as many as fifty, the
well-to-do butcher and grazier of ---- died; but, before his death, he
confessed that he had waylaid Mr. ---- on the heath close to the town,
almost within call of his own house, intending only to rob him, but
meeting with more resistance than he anticipated, had been provoked to
stab him; and had buried him that very night deep under the loose sand
of the heath. There his skeleton was found; but too late for his poor
mother to know that his fame was cleared. His sister, too, was dead,
unmarried, for no one liked the possibilities which might arise from
being connected with the family. None cared if he was guilty or innocent
now.

If our Detective Police had only been in existence!

This last is hardly a story of unacc