With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe

that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at

all events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under

obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than

any one else. But when, in the clearer light of next morning, I began to

reconsider the matter and to hear it discussed around me on all sides, I

took another view of the case, which was more reasonable.

Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a

quarter after eight o'clock to a quarter before ten. While he was there,

my sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had exchanged

Good Night with a farm-laborer going home. The man could not be more

particular as to the time at which he saw her (he got into dense

confusion when he tried to be), than that it must have been before nine.

When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found her struck down

on the floor, and promptly called in assistance. The fire had not then

burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle very long; the

candle, however, had been blown out.

Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house. Neither, beyond

the blowing out of the candle,--which stood on a table between the door

and my sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and was

struck,--was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, excepting such

as she herself had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one

remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with

something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were

dealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable

violence, as she lay on her face. And on the ground beside her, when Joe

picked her up, was a convict's leg-iron which had been filed asunder.

Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, declared it to have

been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the

Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion

was corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the

prison-ships to which it undoubtedly had once belonged; but they claimed

to know for certain that that particular manacle had not been worn by

either of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Further, one of

those two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his iron.




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