THE UNJUST JUDGMENT.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 46, 18 November 1867, Page 4

THE UNJUST JUDGMENT.

•(Continued -from ovu last.) iCHAPTER 4L " Come, move on there J” cried an ever monotonous policeman, stopping before Km. “ You can’t , 6 top here r John said nothing, hut he rose to go whither ho cared not. He -still hoped ■fho had been in some place of refuge for the night, and with the day would appear. He was crushed now; the strength of desperation had not been awakened. “ Stand out of the way there !” exclaimed an authoritative voice. John turned hastily round—he had been creeping shiveringly along the footpath. There was a crowd advancing, all talking together, and in the centre four men - carrying a stretcher on their .shoulders. 41 J heard a splash last night,” said one, u when I wur hurrvin’ home from . my work, but I din’t think it wur a ’pman.” “ She wur caught in the tow-line of a barge,” responded a second, “an’ that’s how I seed her long hair, bangin’ over it, when I looked into the water list now!” John mechanically followed with the mob. Why was it that he never asked 4 question f Why did he, who had lingered near and then came back again to that spot all night, now unhesitatingly move away from it ?” He could not have replied to all these queries; it was the working within him of a mightier power than his own will. - He seemed afraid to ask anything, hut as he walked beside that stretcher, covered with a cloth, he endeavoured furtively to catch a sight of some portion of the clothing or person. He felt that the smallest atom of one of Jenny’s dresses, though at that momentunknown, anteineinbiered in pattern, would at once be recognised by his strained sight. And so they came at length to the workhouse, and here the mob stopped, tad the hearers rested their burden.

John Hughes, who neither felt the cold nor hunger now, quickly drew near and uncovered a corner of the stretcher. It seemed to him as if he had been all the length of that walk—known whose stark body was being borne along. There was no cry, no exclamation; his agony was as frozen as his poor numbed limbs, but not the less keenly sensible of pain for that coating of frost. It was not with cold alone that his lips quivered as he said— This he my wife! Last -evenin’ she strayed away from home and I’se been lootin’ for her all night.” “ I daresay you drove her out from drunkenness or brutality!” sadd a charitable policeman; sternly; “ but you may depend on’t ’twill be seen into;!” “Lord knows, I didn’t!” .answered John, still with his fixed eye glaring on that now uncovered woman and the child still clasped to her bosom—that drunken bosom all bare, as if to the last she had striven to nourish the poor baby. “ Lord knows I wur never drunk in my life, an’ never ill-treated she, poor Jenny, nor druv her from home!”

“Tien what did she go an’ drown herself for ?” asked the first speaker, gruffly. “ Hunger—starvation!” answered John.

“ Come, I like that!” said the overseer of the workhouse. “As if anyone died in Lunnun d’ that, an houses like this everywhere to shelter ’em!” John said no more, but he stood watching all they did, like one dehe neither moved nor spoke again. Indeed he was realising the bleakest winters of memory, as he stood there dreaming of his once snug cot, and that cold starved being now, the life and joy of it then. The inquest was held, and Justice put on her spectacles to examine into the whole affair. No one could prove acts of cruelty on the part of the husband, but it was brought to light that he had been a u notorious poacher,” so the reporters said, and just released from prison, so there was little doubt but that his misconduct had driven the wretched woman to commit murder and suicide. There could exist no question about the badness of the man, for he was so utterly hardened, that when they were on the inquest, and all these circumstances brought to light against him he .actually smiled. So he did, and woe to the heart so striken as to smile in such a case; it must truly he choked in wormwood and gain Jenny and her child lay in their parish made grave! A workhouse shell for her and the boy so loved and cherished once, and John Hughes turned away, over the wide bleak world. Oh, London is a hospitable place for the home!ess,if reckless. John Hughes soon found many friends —friends to push him on in the world, for he was heedless now, and at war with mankind. He grew to delight in the path forced upon him He preyed upon mankind, ana on the rich. But John must, indeed, have been penniless if he turned aside from a mother and child, or a man, with a wan, starved look, without assisting them. More than once when his pockets were dry, he took the coat from his hack, and entering the nearest pawnbroker’s, pledged it, and relieved the beggar. No one ever saw him drunk or disorderly in conduct. No: coolly

John Hughes soon found many friends —friends to push him on in the world, for he was heedless now, and at war with mankind. He grew to delight in the path forced upon him He preyed upon mankind, ana on the rich. But John must, indeed, have been penniless if he turned aside from a mother and child, or a man, with a wan, starved look, without assisting them. More than once when his pockets were dry, he took the coat from his hack, and entering the nearest pawnbroker’s, pledged it, and relieved the beggar. No one ever saw him drunk or disorderly in conduct. No; coolly and resolutely he pursued his dreadful calling of theft, as if struggling to attain pre-eminence in some noble profession. Time sped and among his associates no one was more sought after for any perilous enterprise than ‘Countryman as hewastermed.More thanoncehehadthrown himself into danger to save another, in some 'colossal robber he might have turned Queen evidence against his accomplices and been saved, but none feared John. “He’s true to the backbone !” was the character he bore.

Pity, indeed, that it should not have been in a better cause! Pity, indeed, that such a man should have been lost by the malevolence of the really wicked! those wolves in sheep’s clothing who infest society. Many were John’s escapes from the hands of the law, more than once from prison, and now we find him again returned, an escaped convict from the hulks.

It would seem either that he was now afraid to venture -on the scene of his recent misdemeanours, London, or else other and deeper plans were in his mind.

Shortly -after it became known that three of the principal persons in the village where John Hughes had been first so -wickedly and illegally convicted, had had-their houses burglariously entered and robbed in the most complete manner, and what made the circumstances most remarkable, all in one night.

Vain was all search, the' burglars escaped undetected. Articles of priceless value to the owners, old family portraits, were ruthlessly destroyed, which made it appear more like an act of revenge than even robbery, in one case more especially.

One of the magistrates some before bad lost an only daughter ; it was well known that the portrait of this girl hung at the foot of her devoted and much sorrowing father’s bed, ..Daring must have been the man who ventured there .. the dead of night, and before any ehectual resistance could bo offered,

gagged and bound the magistrate, and before his eyes cut the portrait into shreds!

This man had black crape over his face, and when the deed was accomplished turning to the agonised man, the burglar said—- “ Now thee will remember one thee’st driven to sin and shame!” Strange that no one dreamed of John Hughes. •chapter xv. ■Some few weeks after these events the bailiff at the Elms was quietly sauntering over the fields near where Jehn had shot the rabbit. It was a lovely evening, about nine o’clock, in July, Suddenly, a man jumped over the hedge and confronted him—- “ Mayhap ye doant remember I f’ was the abrupt question. The bailiff started, he did recollect the voice perfectly } perhaps he had'often heard it in conscience, for that is an uncomfortable inhabitant of the bosom when doing wrong, which we all possess. “ I be John Hughes,” continued the speaker John Hughes, ye made a thief of, ye cantin’ villain, when he wur a honest man! John Hughes, whose pretty young, wife an’ child ye druvinto the cold waters off Lunmm Bridge—d’ye mind that?” “ Thief and ruffian let me pass!” exclaimed the other, trying to seem brave, but he trembled and turned yellow with fear. TO BE CONTINUED.