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first won away her lover, and next ruined and deprived her of her one heart’s treasure—her little son. When the as size week drew on, and Jack had to stand his trial, Harriet did not appear in the case at ail, which was allowed to take its course, Mrs. Palmley testifying to the general facts of the burglary. Whether Harriet would have come forward if Jack had appealed to her is not known; possibly she would have done it for pity’s sake; but Jack was too proud to ask a single favor of a girl who had jilted him, and he let her alone. The trial was a short one, and the death sentence was passed.
“The day o’ young Jack’s execution was a cold, dusty Saturday in March, He was so boyish and slim that they were obliged in mercy to hang him in the heaviest fetters kept in the jail, lest his heft should not break his neck, and they weighed so upon him that he could hardly drag himself up tothe drop. At that time the gover’ment was not strict about burying the body of an executed person within the precincts of the prison, and at the earnest prayer of his poor mother his body was allowed to be brought home. All the parish waited at their cottage doors in the evening for its arrival ; I remember how, so a very little girl, I atood by my mother’s side. About eight o’clock, as we hearkened on our door-stones in the cold, bright starlight, we could hear the faint crackle of a wagon from the direction of the tarnpike-road, The noise was lost as the wagon dropped into a hollow, then it was plain again as it lumbered down the next long incline, and presently it entered Longpuddle, The coffin was laid in the belfry for the night, and the next day, Sunday, between the services, we buried him. A funeral sermon was preached the same afternoon, the text chosen being, ‘He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’... Yes, they were cruel times!