nd who had violently and
excitedly objected to the body of a hanged man being brought to defile
any abode which sheltered her. That same evening the body of her own
son, found drowned in Tweed, was carried over that threshold across
which she had tried to prevent them from bringing the corpse of Hislop.
All these events tended to swing round public opinion, and those who
formerly had been most satisfied of their guilt, now most strenuously
protested their entire belief in the innocence of the hanged men. The
years slipped away, however, and there had arisen nothing either to
confirm or to dissipate this belief; only the story remained fresh in
the minds of Border folk, and the horror of the last scene grew rather
than lessened with repeated telling.

But there is a belief--not always borne out by facts--that "murder will
out"; a faith that, "though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they
grind exceeding small." Ten years had passed, and the spring of 1795 was
at hand, when it chanced one day that a citizen of Newcastle, homeward
bound from Morpeth, had reached a point on the road near Gosforth; here,
without word or challenge, a footpad, springing on to the road, fired a
pistol at the postillion of the postchaise, knocking off the man's cap
and injuring his face. The frightened horses plunged, and dashed off
madly with the vehicle, leaving in the footpad's possession no booty of
greater value, however, than the postillion's cap.

Later in the same day the same footpad fired, without effect, on two
mounted men, who galloped off and gave the alarm, and a well-armed band
setting out from Gosforth soon captured the robber, still with the
incriminating postillion's cap in his possession. He was a man named
Hall, a soldier belonging to the 6th Regiment of Foot, of which a
detachment was then stationed in the district. And he was in uniform,
though, as a measure of precaution, and not to make himself too
conspicuous, he wore his tunic turned inside out--a disguise that one
would pronounce to be something of the simplest.

There was, of course, no possible defence--indeed, he owned up, and at
the next assizes was condemned to death. And here the link with the fate
of Wallace and Hislop came in. As he lay awaiting execution, Hall
confessed that it was he, that February night in 1785, who had stunned
and robbed Captain Craes. He had seen the old sailor making his not very
steady way homewards, and had followed him, and at the l