ker, and the first blow was
struck, bringing Green to the ground. The friendly Redding, who had
bargained for the second, and who, naturally enough, was in fear of
being cut out altogether, jumped on the prostrate man, and fulfilled
his share of the bargain with a will. It was Redding it was supposed
who sped the unhappy Green. They overdid their work--like young
authors--giving many more blows than were sufficient, and then fled.
The works, of course, were that morning in consternation. Redding and
Hickie were, if I remember rightly, apprehended in the course of the
day. Doolan got off, leaving no trace of his whereabouts.

These particulars were all learned subsequently. The first intimation
which we schoolboys received of anything unusual having occurred, was
the sight of a detachment of soldiers with fixed bayonets, trousers
rolled up over muddy boots, marching past the front of the Cathedral
hurriedly home to barracks. This was a circumstance somewhat unusual.
We had, of course, frequently seen a couple of soldiers trudging along
with sloped muskets, and that cruel glitter of steel which no one of us
could look upon quite unmoved; but in such cases, the deserter walking
between them in his shirt-sleeves, his pinioned hands covered from
public gaze by the loose folds of his great-coat, explained everything.
But from the hurried march of these mud-splashed men, nothing could be
gathered, and we were left to speculate upon its meaning. Gradually,
however, before the evening fell, the rumour of a murder having been
committed spread through the city, and with that I instinctively
connected the apparition of the file of muddy soldiers. Next day,
murder was in every mouth. My school-fellows talked of it to the
detriment of their lessons; it flavoured the tobacco of the fustian
artisan as he smoked to work after breakfast; it walked on 'Change
amongst the merchants. It was known that two of the persons implicated
had been captured, but that the other, and guiltiest, was still at
large; and in a few days out on every piece of boarding and blank wall
came the "Hue and cry"--describing Doolan like a photograph, to the
colour and cut of his whiskers, and offering 100 pounds as reward for
his apprehension, or for such information as would lead to his
apprehension--like a silent, implacable bloodhound following close on
the track of the murderer. This terrible broadsheet I read, was
certain that _he_ had read it also