serted, the concocter of the whole business: while all were
murderers in intention. Had they succeeded in effecting their object
by plundering the house, Farmer Nutt, whose habits of staying somewhat
late from home on fair nights were well known to all the
neighbourhood, was to have been waylaid on the towing-path which led
to his house, and as, although a quiet man, there was a good deal of
resolute spirit about him, and he would have had a heavy purse with
him, the proceeds of stock sold at the fair, with which he would not
easily have parted, there was no question but that he would have found
a grave in the canal. Of Brown's lodging in the house the party were
well aware; but they had laid their plans so warily for effecting an
entrance without noise, and easily overpowering the women, that they
hoped either altogether to avoid disturbing his quarter of the house,
or making it evident to him that resistance was useless. Of course,
our appearance was wholly unexpected; they had watched for some time,
but we had been so quiet for the last hour (being in truth more than
half asleep) that they had no suspicion of there being any one
stirring in Brown's rooms.

I saw the unfortunate prisoner several times, and found him open and
communicative on every subject but one. Any information with regard to
his accomplice who had escaped, he always steadily refused; nor did a
single unguarded word ever drop from him in conversation with any one
by which the slightest clue could be obtained as to his identity. Even
the police inspector, the most plausible and unscrupulous of his
class, a perfect Machiavel among the Peelers, who could make a
prisoner believe he was his only friend while he was doing his best to
put the halter round his neck, even his practised policy was
unsuccessful here. There was little doubt, however, that it was some
person familiar with the premises, from the circumstance that poor
Boxer, whose silence on the night of the attack we had all been
surprised at, and who was not of a mood to be easily inveigled by
strangers, even with the usual attractions of poisoned meat, &c., had
disappeared, and was never heard of from that time forth. Suspicion of
course fell upon several; but the matter remains to this day, I
believe, a mystery. The prisoner, as I have said, pleaded guilty, and
received sentence of death; under the circumstances of the crime, and
its nearly fatal result, no other could be expected; nor did th