Well, well-we need not quarrel about it; the thing is to get them off if we can. We may depend upon you, I suppose ?"

"Certainly, provided we succeed in muzzling the young one."

"Never fear for that; leave that to us."

The conversation ended here, and was not resumed; for one of the speakers happening to put a question to me, which I answered, the tone of my voice appeared to produce a strong effect upon the whole party. A private signal passed between them; and the female, as well as the more remote of the two men, wrapped themselves closely up, and were silent. When day dawned, therefore, I could not discover a feature of their faces; and those of the third person, though not so well concealed, were not sufficiently familiar to be recognized.

We reached Maidstone in such time as to allow my paying a short visit to my parishioner that day. I found him, as I had expected to find him, utterly and fearfully dejected. For his life, he protested that he had no regard; but his character was gone for ever, and the distress of his poor mother affected him not less than any part of his misfortunes. At first, indeed, his manner was that of a man thoroughly reckless. He would hardly enter upon the subject of the murder at all; and he positively refused to come forward, should such a measure be proposed, as a witness against his associates. "No, sir," said he,'" my name is black enough already, but never shall it be said that those who were my companions, suffered through my treachery." course, I did my best to overcome this absurd resolution, but my efforts were fruitless, and the hour of locking up being at hand, I was compelled to desist.

Of

In returning along the passage, I was startled by the appearance of old Petley and his daughter, as they issued from one of the cells. The whole truth now flashed upon me. The voice which had sounded so familiar in my ears during the progress of my journey hither, was that of the smuggler, and the caution with which my fellow

travellers had concealed their features, was explained. Not that there either was or could be the slightest impropriety in their using every fair and legitimate means for the deliverance of their own relatives from trouble; but I knew them too well not to be aware, that they would not confine themselves to fair means; and I had seen too many proofs of the girl's absolute control over Brockman, not to apprehend, that it might be so managed as to cause his destruction. I accordingly returned to my inn, more than ever alarmed for the fate of the young man.

Nor were my fears groundless. I visited him again on the day following, only to find him more than ever fixed in his unwise determination. The syren had cast her spell over him ; and a resolution, grounded upon false notions of honour, received ten-fold strength from her persuasive blandishments. "All will be well," said he. "They cannot, and I will not disclose anything; and without some declaration on our parts, what evidence is against us? And should the contrary happen, my mind is firmly made up; I will never become an informer." It was vain to reason farther with one so completely infatuated, so I quitted the place with a heavy heart.

Of the manner in which he conducted himself during the fortnight which intervened, between my last visit and the arrival of the judges, I know nothing. His mother, I learned, who spent the interval in a lodging at Maidstone, failed, as I had failed, in inducing him to save his life by speaking what he knew; and the official offer made by the Sheriff was rejected. Not even when assured, that one of the brothers stood ready to accept the mercy which he despised, could he be persuaded to alter his mind; and hence, when I returned, as I was obliged to return, to give testimony on his trial, his prospects were not in the most remote degree ameliorated. On the contrary, though much of the fierce and desperate character which marked his former demeanour had departed, yet on the single point of becoming King's evidence, he was still as resolute as before, praying "that Heaven would abandon him in his hour of greatest need, whenever he abandoned that determination." This was readily accounted for. Not

1

a day passed by without his receiving a visit from Harriet, and not an interview occurred, during which he was not reminded of his promise, and urged to keep it.

At length the period of the assizes came round; and the Judges having gone in procession to hear divine service, opened the Court in proper form for the conduct of public business. The first day, as usually happens, was spent chiefly in the arrangement of preliminary matters; the juries were called together, the charge delivered, and bills of indictment brought for ward. On the second day, the cause of the smugglers came on. It is probably needless to observe, that a trial for murder, under any circumstances, never fails to excite a great degree of attention; but in the case to be tried to-day, there were features of more than ordinary atrocity, and the interest taken in it by the public was fully evinced by the multitudes which surrounded the Court-house from an early hour in the morning. No sooner were the doors opened, than every bench and corner was crowded to suffocation, whilst all who filled them bore upon their countenances an expression of the deepest and most painful anxiety. For a rumour of Will's behaviour had, by some means or other, got abroad, and hence all descriptions of people appeared to interest their feelings in his behalf; indeed, there were not wanting several respectable persons, who volunteered such advice and assistance as they had it in their power to offer. At the suggestion of one of these, Mrs Brockman had taken care, in addition to the lawyers employed for the prisoners generally, to engage a counsel expressly for her son, whose reputation stocd high, and who certainly merited, in the present instance, all the praise which could be heaped upon him.

Such was the state of affairs, when, in obedience to a message from the Court, I entered the hall, and took my place among the gentlemen of the bar. For the first minute or two after I was seated, my brain swam round, and my eyes danced in their sockets, so that I could distinguish nothing with accuracy. A dense mass of objects floated before me, and a hum, like that of bees on a summer's evening, rung in my ears; but I saw no separate man, nor heard any separate or articulate

sound. By and by, however, my selfcommand returned, and I looked towards the dock,-it was a terrible vision. There stood the widow's son, hand-cuffed, and bound with chains, between two of his ferocious comrades. Apart from the rest stood the third, not chained, however, like them; but, as it seemed, ready to step from the dock to the witness-box. I closed my eyes involuntarily, and, I fear, cursed him in my heart.

And now, silence being proclaimed, the murmur of conversation ceased, and you might have heard a pin drop to the ground, whilst the proper officer proceeded to read the indictment. It accused Zachariah Petley, Thomas Petley, Edward Petley, and William Brockman, of having, during the night of the 15th of August last past, at a certain place within the parish of St Alphage, in the county of Kent, feloniously, and with malice prepense, killed and slain Robert Sharp, an officer of his Majesty's customs, when in the performance of his duty. A second count charged the prisoners with an attempt to defraud the revenue by running and importing contraband goods. All against the peace of his Majesty the king. "Zachariah Petley," continued the officer, are you guilty, or not guilty ?"-" Not guilty, my lord."

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"Thomas Petley, are you guilty, or not guilty?"-"Not guilty." "Edward Petley, are you guilty?""Not guilty, my lord."-" William Brockman, are you guilty, or not guilty?"-" Guilty of the second count, but not guilty of the first."

"Not guilty of the first," shrieked a female voice froin one of the galleries. "Not guilty of murder; hear ye that, my lord! My boy is not guilty,

oh let him go, let him go !" Not a sound was in the court, save the voice of the speaker; and so perfectly electrified were all present by the tone in which these words were uttered, that no one sought to interrupt her. I looked up towards the place from whence the shriek came, and there stood the miserable widow in the very front of the gallery, with hands clasped, and arms uplifted, staring upon the spot occupied by her son. Her dress was all disordered; her cap, pushed partly off her head, permitted her hair, now slightly tinged with grey, to hang wild about her shoulders; and her large dark eyes

were motionless, as if they had no power to move, and all earthly objects, except one, were shut out from them. The Judge had, however, by this time recovered from his surprise. "My good woman," said he, " you must keep silence; and I advise you to withdraw."

"I will,-I will," cried she; " but hear ye not his declaration? And I will swear to its truth, and so will Mr Williams."

"This must not be," rejoined the Judge. "Constables, do your duty, and keep order in the Court." But even the constables were tender to her. They only besought her to be quiet; she sat down, and the business pro-ceeded.

"By the lenity of the Court, and at the request of the Board of Excise," said the counsel for the prosecution, "Thomas Petley is permitted to give evidence in this case. We therefore withdraw our plea against him.” The Judge hereupon charged the jury; and a verdict of not guilty on both counts being returned, the approver quitted the dock.

It were needless to go minutely through the several parts of the trial, and to repeat my own evidence, or that of the rest, who knew no more to-day than they had known when the prisoners were first committed. The counsel for the defence did what men could do to puzzle and confound us. He whom we had retained for Brockman, in particular, exercised a degree of ingenuity which perfectly astonished me; and he put several questions to myself with the design of eliciting from my replies that Brockman, at all events, could not be implicated in the more serious offence. "I think you mentioned, sir," said he, "that, after the shots were fired, and the shriek uttered, you saw only two men beside the body, whilst one was descending the hill towards the group-Was he who was descending a tall man, or a little man?"-" As far as I could judge, a tall man."

"Now, look at the three prisoners at the bar, and at the witness who has lately quitted it, and tell me which of them comes nearest in height to the recollection you have of that man."

I looked round. Brockman was full two inches taller than any of them; yet I dared not swear that it was he. Í hesitated for a moment. "We do not

wish you to say which of these persons was really the man; for as yet, we take it for granted that he is not present; but, supposing these to be the people implicated, which should you imagine to have been that man?”

To the question thus put, an objection was raised by the counsel on the opposite side; but the objection was overruled. "As you now address me," answered I," I should say that William Brockman's height corresponds most nearly with that of the person alluded to.'

5

"God bless you, sir!" again exclaimed the unhappy mother; but she was immediately silenced.

The rest of the evidence being now disposed of, Thomas Petley mounted the witness-box, and was solemnly sworn. He promised to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and prayed God to help him, as he kept that promise; he gave a minute and circumstantial detail, of which the following may be taken as an accurate abbreviation.

He admitted that they were all four engaged in a smuggling expedition. He related the circumstance of the seizure as it had been described by the exciseman and myself; and of the flight of those who carried the goods. These were, his brother Edward, William Brockman, and himself. "As to Zachariah," said he, "we left him in charge of the boat, and he never joined us till all was over." When the witness uttered this, Brockman turned round in the dock, and stared him full in the face. A sort of flush passed over his cheeks, but he was no ways farther embarrassed, and went

on.

"Though we fled at first in different directions, we all three met in a hollow about a stone's throw to the right, and here entered into a consultation as to what was to be done. Done, cried Brockman, who had drank rather too freely, what should be done? You have pistols, I have a knife; there are three to two;-let us recover the goods. To this we objected; but he snatched a pistol from my belt, and swore if we feared to join him he would go alone. He set off accordingly; we followed, with the sole view of preventing fatal consequences; but before we could overtake him he and the deceased had exchanged shots. The deceased was wounded, and fled; but Brockman pursued him, seized

him like a tiger, threw him, and just as we reached him, had succeeded in cutting his throat. I wrested the knife from his grasp, and in the struggle wounded him. We were all about the body, uncertain how to dispose of it, when my brother arrived. He mentioned having met the other exciseman, and assured us all Folkstone would be a-foot directly; so we cast the body from the cliff, and then we thought of escaping. But it seemed better to hide it first. We accordingly descended the glen; and buried it under the stones where it was found."

Whilst this person's evidence was delivered, men seemed to hold their very breath with anxiety; now that it came to a close, a long sob or sigh ran through the court. A fearful stillness followed it, and every eye was turned upon Brockman. The unfortunate youth, up to this moment, had hung down his head, as if in shame; he now raised it proudly, and looked calmly and resolutely round. "My Lord," said he slowly, and with great firmness, "the last witness has uttered a tissue of lies. I have sworn not to betray the guilty, but I am not he."

The cross-examination which the approver endured, was indeed enough to cause an ordinary person, even when speaking the truth, to fall into a thousand contradictions. He was asked how the knife came into the grave; but he could not tell; he was questioned as to the reason why Brockman, if so desperate a character, wore no pistols of his own? For that he could not account; but in the main points of his story no contrariety appeared; and though required to tell it again and again, he invariably told it in the same words. It was well got up; no doubt it had been well prepared before-hand. Our counsel at length sat down in despair, leaving the case to the jury.

And now the Judge summed up. He went over the chief heads of evidence with the strictest impartiality, charging the jury as that evidence required. He entreated them, if they had any doubts upon their minds, to give the prisoners the full benefit of these doubts; "but the testimony of the last witness," continued his Lordship,

"is so clear, and so decided, that, in my opinion, you have but one duty to perform. It is a painful one; but the laws of God and of your country require it. And now you may withdraw to consider the verdict.”

The jury did not withdraw; but consulted together for perhaps ten minutes, in their box. During that interval, the court was as still, except when its stillness was interrupted by their whispers, as if life had departed from all within it. Once, and once only, the chain upon Brockman's legs rattled, as he resumed his former position; and the sound went to my heart like that of his death-knell. I looked at him. He was pale, pale as a corpse, but it was not the paleness of guilt; for not a nerve shook, nor did a muscle involuntarily quiver. At last the foreman addressed the Judge, and told him that they had made up their minds.

"And what is your verdict, gentlemen of the Jury?"

"That Zachariah Petley, and Edward Petley are not guilty on the first count, but guilty on the second; that William Brockman is guilt on both."

"He is not guilty!" again shrieked out his mother, as she wildly rose from her seat. "Oh, mercy, mercy, my Lord Judge! spare the life of the widow's son-her guiltless, excellent son! Oh, mercy, mercy!" She could utter no more. Her senses forsook her, and she was carried in that state from the court.

Brockman heard the verdict unmoved. He made a forward spring when his mother fainted, as if to support her, and seemed to curse the chains which kept him back; but he recovered his self-command again, as soon as she had been borne out, and calmly awaited his sentence. For myself, I started up, and heedless of forms, implored the Judge to spare him, pledging my credit that he could not be guilty, and that his bare assertion was infinitely more to be relied upon than the oath of the person on whose testimony he had been convicted. The Judge, who was a mild man, heard me out, but could not receive my testimony. "You may employ these arguments," said he, "in a petition to the throne, which I shall certainly forward, if you present it. But I must tell you plainly, that I see no grounds on which any petition can be got up;

far less can it be expected to avail in saving the life of a man convicted, as the prisoner has been convicted, of murder."

I could do no more, so I sat down in a state of utter despondency, to watch the conclusion of the scene. "Zachariah and Edward Petley," said his Lordship, addressing himself to the dock, " you have both been convicted of violating the laws of your country, by defrauding his Majesty's revenue. What makes the crime in your case more heinous is, that you appear to have carried fire-arms about your persons when engaged in your nefarious occupation; and in what way those arms were meant to be used, is hardly to be considered a question. The immediate consequence of your being armed, indeed, has been, that the life of a fellow-creature has been sacrificed; and though he died not immediately by your hands, you can hardly be acquitted by your own consciences of some share in the blame attaching to his murder. Taking all these matters into consideration, the sentence of the court is, that you, Zachariah, be transported beyond seas for the term of seven years, whilst you, Edward, be transported for the term of your natural life. And now, William Brockman," continued the Judge, whilst at the same time he put on the black cap, "a more distressing task awaits me with respect to you. Of your character previous to this business the court knows nothing, and can know nothing officially; but it has been said of you, that the time is not very remote when you were accounted a credit to yourself and to your connexions. I would to God you had always continued such; for then the painful duty would not have been imposed upon me, of passing upon you the last dreadful sentence which the law awards. In your case, the sentence of the Court is, that you be taken from the place where you stand to the jail, and from thence to the place of execution, and that you

be hanged by the neck till you be dead, and your body given for dissec tion; and may God have mercy on your soul! I can hold out to you no hope of mercy from man, and therefore advise you to make your peace with Heaven. But as your friends seem anxious to petition the throne in your favour, I will appoint as distant a day for your execution as is consistent with propriety. You shall suffer on Wednesday next."

Whilst others sat as if frozen with horror, Brockman alone seemed calm and unruffled. "My Lord," said he, "I thank you for your good will, but I have no hope that it will avail me. Indeed, I hardly desire it. My character is blasted, and I have no wish to survive it; but I am innocent,-innocent of the crime laid to my charge. I have been led astray by a misplaced passion, and betrayed by false friends. The man who did the deed stands here," laying his hand upon the shoulder of Edward Petley, who absolutely shrunk beneath his touch. "And there," pointing to Thomas, "is he who aided him. This wound,” holding up his right hand, "I received in striving to protect the man, whom one brother had smitten down, from the fury of the other; and as to the knife found in the grave, it is thus accounted for. We exchanged knives whilst at sea; and here is that for which I bartered mine. But it matters not, I shall suffer; and as I hope to be forgiven when I stand before the throne of my Maker, so do I freely forgive my murderers."

It is impossible to describe the effect produced by this speech, and by the holding up of a seaman's knife in the hand of the prisoner, bearing the initials E. P. “He is innocent!" exclaimed the bar, one and all; "the man is sacrificed."-" Silence, gentlemen, " cried the Judge; "let the prisoners be removed.' They were removed accordingly, and I staid not long behind them.