only when they first became suspicious instinct came to his aid and
closed his eyes and stilled his tremors and gave him the appearance of
being asleep. Early next morning, with his terror still on him, he told
what he had heard to his brother, and by and by, unable to keep the
dreadful secret, they related it to someone--a carter or ploughman on
the farm. He in turn told the farmer, who at once gave information, and
in a short time the man and woman were arrested. In due time they were
tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged in the parish where the
crime had been committed.

Everybody was delighted, and Coombe most delighted of all, for it
happened that some of their wise people had been diligently examining
into the matter and had made the discovery that the woman had been
murdered just outside their borders in the adjoining parish of Inkpen,
so that they were going to enjoy seeing the wicked punished at somebody
else's expense. Inkpen was furious and swore that it would not be
saddled with the cost of a great public double execution. The line
dividing the two parishes had always been a doubtful one; now they
were going to take the benefit of the doubt and let Coombe hang its own
miscreants!

As neither side would yield, the higher authorities were compelled to
settle the matter for them, and ordered the cost to be divided between
the two parishes, the gibbet to be erected on the boundary line, as far
as it could be ascertained. This was accordingly done, the gibbet
being erected at the highest point crossed by the line, on a stretch
of beautiful smooth elastic turf, among prehistoric earthworks--a
spot commanding one of the finest and most extensive views in Southern
England. The day appointed for the execution brought the greatest
concourse of people ever witnessed at that lofty spot, at all events
since prehistoric times. If some of the ancient Britons had come out
of their graves to look on, seated on their earthworks, they would have
probably rubbed their ghostly hands together and remarked to each other
that it reminded them of old times. All classes were there, from the
nobility and gentry, on horseback and in great coaches in which they
carried their own provisions, to the meaner sort who had trudged from
all the country round on foot, and those who had not brought their own
food and beer were catered for by traders in carts. The crowd was a
hilarious one, and no doubt that grand picnic on the beacon was