I now live, together with the fifty acres adjoining,
and two thousand pounds in the funds. The interest of the latter to be
devoted to my mother during her life, but both principal and interest to
devolve to me at her death.

This handsome legacy seemed to console my mother a great deal for the
loss of her wealthy lover; but it only served to debase me lower in my
own eyes, and deepen the pangs of remorse. How gladly would I have
quitted this part of the country! but I was so haunted by the fear of
detection, that I was afraid lest it might awaken suspicions in the
minds of poor neighbours. On every hand I heard that the Squire had made
a gentleman of Noah Cotton, while I cursed the money in my heart, and
would thankfully have exchanged my lot with the poorest emigrant that
ever crossed the seas in search of a new home.

The property bequeathed me by the Squire was a mile from the village, in
an opposite direction to the porter's lodge. My mother quitted our old
home with reluctance; but I was glad to leave a place which was
associated in my mind with such terrible recollections.

The night before we removed to the Porched House--for so my new home was
called--I waited until after my mother had retired to her bed, and then
carefully removed from its hiding-place the sack and its fatal contents.
The waggoner's frock and hat, together with the sack, I burned in a
field at the back of the Lodge, and then slunk back, like a guilty
wretch, under the cover of night and darkness, to my own chamber. It was
some time before I could muster sufficient courage to open the
pocket-book. It felt damp and clammy in my grasp.--It had been saturated
with his blood; and the roll of bank notes were dyed with the same dull
red hue. I did not unroll them. A ghastly sickness stole over me
whenever my eye fell upon them. I seemed distinctly to trace his dying
face in those horrible stains--that last look of blank surprise and
unutterable woe with which he regarded me when he recognised in me his
murderer!

It was necessary to put out of sight these memorials of my guilt. I
would have burnt them, but I could not bring my heart to destroy such a
large sum of money; neither could I dare to make use of it. An old
bureau had been purchased by my mother at a sale: she had given it to
me, for a receptacle for books and papers. I possessed so few of these,
that I generally kept my shooting apparatus in its many odd nooks and
drawers. While stowin