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lede a nu life if unce I gits hout of this plac. can tak my oth that I never seed Jim Watson, nor anny of is gang all that blessed nite, but was saf at ome, has mi por dere wife can tel you, and she alwase spiks the truth has you no ful well. praps ther is them at larg who are as bad as me, and far worser, only they hav more larning and a pocket ful of munnee, an so fokes feres to middle with them. pray, sir, cum and se me before mi trial, and giv a luk to the por missis and my sweat babe. O my poor sole, what wil becum of me if they goes to tak my life. there is them as noes that hi am as inocent has the babe unborn.

So no more from

The jail of
Chester.

your servant,

JAMES CARTER.”

The person whom James had employed to write the above letter was evidently no scholar. The next letter he sent was well spelt, and written in a good flowing hand, but it was like too many letters from the prisoners in a jail, written by one among them, in a far more awful state than any there, by a poor deceiving and deceived wretch, familiar with all the mere cant of religion. It would answer no good purpose to let such a letter be made public in any way, Mr. Vaughan went to see James and the other prisoners before their trial. He was also present at the trial. The first person

he saw before him in the crowd that attended in the courts to witness the trial was Ruth; she was standing close to the iron railing which surrounded the prisoners.

The trial began, but when the counsel for the prisoner James Carter was called, Ruth saw at once that some mistake had been made. Mr. Townshend, the barrister, to whom she had not failed to mention the fact which Mr. Hughes, the schoolmaster, had bade her remember, was not there; he was not even in court. A much younger gentleman, whose countenance was certainly not remarkable for intelligence, rose up to undertake the defence. Ruth could never discover how the mistake had been made, or how it was that the defence had been handed over to Mr. Carpenter, the younger barrister. When the witnesses were called to give their evidence against the prisoners, Ruth heard with dismay that her husband was also sworn to. She felt quite certain as to the fact which the schoolmaster, who had, he told her, been present at the examination of the prisoners, had mentioned. Could nothing be done? could she do nothing? Why should she not speak out in the court, and tell the judge the fact? But was there not a more certain and regular way of proceeding? Just then the governor of the jail, who had been standing in one of the lobbies, went out of the court by a door close to the spot where she was standing. Without a moment's

hesitation she determined what she would do. She pushed herself with difficulty through the crowd, and she had scarcely got out, when she saw the governor of the jail. His hand was upon the lock of the door, which he was about to open to return into the court. She had before consulted with him, and he had spoken with great kindness to her. He now listened to her with attention, took her to a room, placed paper, pens and ink, before her, and in less than five minutes after she had left the court, the little slip of paper on which she had written down the fact which the schoolmaster had communicated to her, was handed on the long white wand of one of the attendants to her husband's counsel.

She was unable to push her way back into court, through the closely-packed and suffocating crowd; but in less than an hour, while she was standing in the front of the town-hall, to her utter amazement, her husband stood beside her. The other prisoners had been condemned; he alone had been acquitted. His counsel had followed up the information conveyed to him by Ruth's slip of paperthe witnesses had been cross-examined very skilfully; and when the judge came to sum up the evidence, he had pointed out to the jury the fact,

* If the probability of the above relation should be questioned, the author begs to mention that the same circumstance occurred in his presence; the only difference was, that the brother, and not the wife, of the prisoner, turned the scale.

that it was extremely doubtful whether the younger prisoner had been sworn to on the day of his committal, when the first depositions of the witnesses had been taken down. James Carter had been tried by the law of the land, by a just judge and jury, and he was allowed to receive the full benefit of the law.

CHAPTER IX.

RUTH was not backward to use all the means in her power to impress upon her husband the awful state in which he was still placed before his God. She had no doubt of his being deeply implicated in the events of that fearful night, though she tried to persuade herself that he spoke the truth, when he protested, as he did over and over again, and as he had done before, that in the murder he had had no hand. She sought out Mr. Vaughan, and she brought him to the house of a relation of her husband's, the house to which she had gone with him after the trial. It was in one of the low and filthy alleys of Chester that Mr. Vaughan gladly accompanied her; and the first act of the acquitted prisoner was to kneel down with his minister and his faithful wife, and acknowledge his gratitude to the Father of Mercies, for the mercy that had spared him, and given him time for repentance and a change of life; and that night, and for many nights after, it was the prayer of Ruth, that the

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