Unfortunately for the poor fellow, the band came past, and away rushed his confrères to listen.
It did not matter much to the condemned joskin that he was trundled about the town for two hours after they had returned, and finally deposited under the settle of an inn. For he was dead!
One other example of the congeniality of the Botley folks of long ago. My attention was attracted to a large iron-lettered slab that hangs on the wall of the coffee-room of the Dolphin. The following is the inscription thereon:—
This Stone is Erected To Perpetuate a
Most Cruel Murder Committed on the Body
of Thos. Webb a Poor Inhabitant of Swanmore
on the 11th of Feb. 1800 by John Diggins
a Private Soldier in the Talbot Fencibles
Whose Remains are Gibbeted on the Adjoining Common.
And there doubtless John Diggins’ body swung, and there his bones bleached and rattled till they fell asunder.
But the strange part of the story now has to be told; they had hanged the wrong man!
It is an ugly story altogether. Thus: two men (Fencibles) were drinking at a public-house, and going homewards late made a vow to murder the first man they met. Cruelly did they keep this vow, for an old man they encountered was at once put to the bayonet. Before going away from the body, however, the soldier who had done the deed managed to exchange bayonets with Diggins. The blood-stained instrument was therefore found in his scabbard, and he was tried and hanged. The real murderer confessed his crime twenty-one years afterwards, when on his deathbed.
So much for the Botley of long ago.
The iron slab, by the way, was found in the cellar of the Dolphin, and the flag of the Talbot Fencibles, strange to say, was found in the roof.
We took Southampton as our midday halt, driving all round the South Park before we entered—such a charming park—and stopped to dine among the guns away down beside the pier.