The next day
the poor old creature was found dead in his hut--his brains beaten out
with an old iron implement which he used--and his little furniture rifled,
and in confusion. The wretch had murdered him for the supposed hoard of a
few shillings. The snow, from which he afforded his murderer shelter, had
drifted in at the door, which the miscreant, when he fled, had left open,
and was frozen red with the blood of his victim. But it betrayed a
footstep hard frozen in the snow, and blood--and the nails of the
murderer's shoe were counted, even as his days were soon to be. He was
taken a few days after with a handkerchief of the old man upon his neck.
So blind is blood-guiltiness.
Up to the hour of condemnation, he remained reckless as the
wind--unrepenting as the flint--venomous as the blind-worm. With that deep
and horrible cunning which is so often united to unprincipled ignorance,
he had almost involved in his fate another vagrant with whom he had
chanced to consort, and to whom he had disposed of some of the
blood-bought spoils. The circumstantial evidence was so involved and
interwoven, that the jury, after long and obvious hesitation as to the
latter, found both guilty; and the terrible sentence of death, within
forty-eight hours, was passed upon both.
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