And so they went on reviling me as if I had been the greatest criminal in the land, and dragging me, as they said, to a squire, who would soon show me what law was.
I tried to reason with them, but it was all in vain; I then fell into a passion, and cursed and swore at them in a way which I am certain I never did before at any human being; having always had, while Sheppard Lee, a great horror of profanity; but this was just as fruitless an expedient as the other. They dragged me on until we reached the village, where we found all in a hubbub, men, women, and children running about as if mad, and exclaiming that "Squire Higginson had murdered Sheppard Lee, and hid the body in the Owl-roost Swamp." As soon as they saw me they set up a shout, and some low fellows among them raged in such a degree that I thought they would have massacred me in the street. They crowded round me, hustled me, seized me by the collar, shook their fists in my face, and, in general, testified such a vindictive concern for the murder of poor Sheppard Lee, as they called him, that I might have supposed there was never a man more widely beloved than myself, had I not known otherwise—or, rather, had I not been too closely occupied to suppose any thing about it.
In a word, they carried me before Squire Andrew Parkins, who was a fat man that I heartily despised; and here they called upon him for justice, while I did the same thing, swearing that I would prosecute every rascal of them for assault and battery, conspiracy, defamation, and the Lord knows what beside; all of which, it seems, only inflamed the mob against me the more. They charged me with the murder, and the evidence they brought to support the charge appeared to Justice Parkins sufficient to authorize his issuing a mittimus. There were twenty persons to swear I had, two or three days before, acknowledged having had a quarrel with Sheppard Lee on his farm—that is, the forty-acre—and that he had ordered me off; and there were twenty more to swear I was a man of such a hot and furious temper, that it was a wonder I had not shot the poor man down on the spot. Then came old Turnbuckle and his son, who swore that the ghost of Sheppard Lee had come to them in the gray of the morning, calling for help, and assuring them that he (or his body) lay murdered under the beech-tree in the hollow; that as soon as the phantom had vanished, and they recovered from their fears, they roused the neighbours, and sending some to my house, who learned I had not been at home all night, the others proceeded to the hollow, where they found a freshly-dug grave, with spade and mattock in it, and near it they lit upon my hat and one of my shoes, which latter was bloody, as well as the grass on which it lay; that then, looking round them, they discovered me (that is, John Higginson), sneaking away through the reeds on the marsh in a suspicious way; that at that moment old Jim Jumble was brought forward, who said I (John Hazlewood Higginson) had come to the house, shot his bulldog, threatened to blow his brains out, and bragged that I had just finished, or, in other words, murdered his master, Sheppard Lee; and, finally, that this confirming the suspicions they all had against me, they pursued me (I retreating and shooting their dogs, like a man conscious of guilt, and anxious to escape), and captured me, not without a furious resistance on my part.
On the strength of this testimony I was committed to jail, whither I was conducted amid the shouts of the mob. Squire Parkins (doubtless to beg off as well as he could) afterward privately assured me, that he had committed me to prison, not from any belief that I was guilty, or that the testimony really warranted such a step, but because he was afraid the people would otherwise murder me, and considered that the only way to protect me from their violence.
Meanwhile, there was a great search made for my—that is, Sheppard Lee's—body; the general belief being that I—that is, John H. Higginson—had cast it into the swamp, after having been at the pains to dig a grave, wherein I at first designed to hide it; and I do verily believe that, had my unfortunate old casing been found, I should have begun my new existence in the body of the man I had so much envied by being hanged for the murder. Its sudden disappearance was therefore not more extraordinary than it was really fortunate.
[CHAPTER II.]
THE AUTHOR, BEING IN PRISON, MAKES A CONFIDANT OF A DEPUTY ATTORNEY-GENERAL.—THE INCONVENIENCE OF TELLING A TRUTH WHICH HAPPENS TO BE SOMEWHAT INCREDIBLE.
My wrath gave way when I found myself in prison; and hearing from the jailer that the grand jury was then in session, and the prosecuting attorney actually engaged in framing a bill of endictment against me, to send up to its members, I began to think the matter rather serious, and resolved to end it before it proceeded further.