‘Well, he came into the station quite quiet, and seemed a bit cast down, but that was all. Said fate was against him, and had saved the man he thought to hang in his stead, and he knew how it must end, and couldn’t wait any longer. I cautioned him, of course—told him to sleep on it before he said anything; but make a statement he would. The short of it all is, that the idea of murdering the old lady for her money had come into his mind in a flash when he saw that poor drunken fool exhibiting his knife in the tavern. He followed him, and picked his pocket of the knife, and then hung about the house, meaning to get in after dark. Then he saw the girl come out and go off, leaving the door closed but not latched, the careless hussy! Then in slips the gentleman, and does what he’d made up his mind to—for you see the old woman knew him well, so he couldn’t afford to leave her alive—gets the cash, and slips out. All in gold it was, two hundred and fifty pounds. When he heard that Harden couldn’t be found, he got uneasy in his mind, and has been getting worse ever since, though he did well enough in trade with the money. Seems he considered he wasn’t safe until some one had been hanged. So, when he recognised Harden, he was naturally down on him at once, and was intensely eager to get him convicted—which I noticed myself, sir, as of course you did, and thought it queer too, I don’t doubt. He took too much pains, you see—he must employ you to make certain, instead of leaving it to us; whereas if he hadn’t come to you, your evidence would never have been given, and I think you’ll say nothing could have saved the prisoner.’
It was true enough. The wretched man had insured the failure of his own fiendish design by employing me, of all the solicitors to whom he might have gone!
I learned next morning, how Harden, after trying in vain to light his pipe on that memorable evening, had wandered for hours through the hard-hearted streets, until at daybreak he had found himself in the docks, looking at a large ship preparing to drop down the river with the tide. How he had managed to slip aboard unseen and stow himself away in the hold, with some idea of bettering his not over-bright fortunes in foreign parts. How he had supported his life in the hold with stray fragments of biscuit, which he happened to have in his pockets, until, after a day or two of weary beating about against baffling winds, when they were out in mid-channel, the usual search for stowaways had unearthed him. How the captain, after giving him plenty of strong language and rope’s-end, had at length agreed to allow him to work as a sailor on board the vessel. How on landing at Sydney he had gone into the interior, taken service with his present master—under another name than his own, wishing to disconnect himself entirely with his former life—and by honestly doing his duty had attained his present position.
By the light of this narrative, that which had puzzled me became perfectly clear—namely, how it was that he had contrived not only to get so entirely lost in spite of the hue and cry after him, but also to remain in ignorance of his aunt’s fate.
My client was tried, convicted, and executed in due course; his plea of guilty and voluntary surrender having no weight against the cruel and cowardly attempt to put an innocent man in his place.
When I last saw John Harden, he was married to a serious lady, who had been his late master’s housekeeper, and was possessor of a prosperous general shop in a country village, stocked by means of the money which Mr Slocum had generously left him.
COIN TREASURES.
Man is a collecting animal. It would be absurd to ask what he collects; more to the point would it be to ask what he does not collect. Books, pictures, marbles, china, precious stones, hats, gloves, pipes, walking-sticks, prints, book-plates, monograms, postage-stamps, hangmen’s ropes; the list might be increased indefinitely.
What is it that impels us to heap up such treasures? We say ‘us,’ because we are convinced that few escape untouched by the disease. It may be dormant; it may possibly never show itself; but it is there, and only wants a favourable conjunction of circumstances to bring it to life.
Of all the forms of the collecting mania, few have been so long in existence as that of coins, and few seize us so soon. The articles are portable, nice to look at, and of some intrinsic value. Every one knows what a coin is, and when a lad happens to get hold of one struck, say, two hundred years ago, he naturally is impressed by the fact. Every one knows how easily the very young and the ignorant are taken by the mere age of an article. The writer dates his acquaintance with numismatics (the history of coins) from his receiving in some change a half-crown of Charles II. when he was eleven years old. It was worn very much, but it was two hundred years old, and that was enough. After that, a good deal of pocket-money went in exchange for sundry copper, brass, and silver coins, with the usual result. The collection was discovered to be rubbish; but experience had been gained, and that, as is well known, must be bought.