“You lie,” said Ned, laughing, at the same time striking a heavy blow on the side of Tim’s head with his stick.
The poor groom cast a terrified glance around, and perceived a fellow-servant who had more than once taken his part. But this companion now gave him a very different reception; now, he smote him a blow on the arm with a walking-cane which almost broke the bone.
Then Ned and others rained a shower of blows upon him until he fell to the ground, well punished for all his past boasting.
The energetic and unwearied Ned kept up the pursuit of the gang for one hundred and fifty days, without halting to rest, or scarcely ever putting off his clothes and arms, or quitting his horse’s back.
He made captures almost every day.
The terror that had formerly possessed the neighbourhood had now passed away, and two or three mounted men were quite sufficient to send away any of the fugitives, and more than enough to secure many vagabonds.
It was a truly grand affair the trial of those members of Captain Jack’s band.
The mass of positive evidence was immense, but scarcely equal to the suspicion that attached to the prisoners for other crimes in which it was supposed they had taken a part.
To let light into this chaos, to collect all the scattered proofs, to separate the facts from surmises, to complete imperfect cases by evidence withdrawn from other cases, and to sift the truth out of constantly varying testimony on the part of witnesses, was a most difficult task.
Continual error and confusion arose from the various aliases assumed by the more notorious members of the gang, while the differences in the calendar between old and new style added to the difficulties that beset the ministers of justice.