ght of the candle, and
seemed to fire, and fill the receptacle.

Cutler looked furtively round, plunged his hands in them, took them out
by handfuls, admired them, kissed them, and seemed to worship them,
locked them up again, and put the black case under his pillow.

While they were glaring in the light, Cowen's eyes flashed with unholy
fire. He clutched his hands at them where he stood, but they were
inaccessible. He sat down despondent, and cursed the injustice of
fate. Bubbled out of money in the City; robbed on the road; but when
another had money, it was safe; he left his keys in the locks of both
doors, and his gold never quitted him.

Not long after this discovery he got a letter from his son, telling him
that the college bill for battels, or commons, had come in, and he was
unable to pay it; he begged his father to disburse it, or he should
lose credit.

This tormented the unhappy father, and the proximity of gold tantalized
him so that he bought a phial of laudanum, and secreted it about his
person.

"Better die," said he, "and leave my boy to Barrington. Such a legacy
from his dead comrade will be sacred, and he has the world at his feet."

He even ordered a bottle of red port and kept it by him to swill the
laudanum in, and so get drunk and die.

But when it came to the point he faltered.

Meantime the day drew near for the execution of Daniel Cox. Bradbury
had undertaken too much; his cracksman seemed to the King's advisers as
shadowy as the double of Daniel Cox.

The evening before that fatal day Cowen came to a wild resolution; he
would go to Tyburn at noon, which was the hour fixed, and would die
under that man's gibbet--so was this powerful mind unhinged.

This desperate idea was uppermost in his mind when he went up to his
bedroom.

But he resisted. No, he would never play the coward while there was a
chance left on the cards; while there is life there is hope. He seized
the bottle, uncorked it, and tossed off a glass. It was potent and
tingled through his veins and warmed his heart.

He set the bottle down before him. He filled another glass; but before
he put it to his lips jocund noises were heard coming up the stairs,
and noisy, drunken voices, and two boon companions of his neighbor
Cutler--who had a double-bedded room opposite him--parted with him for
the night. He was not drunk enough, it seems, for he kept demanding
"t'other bottle." His friends, however, were of a dif