They were both seen one day walking together
in the forest, but the young lady suddenly
disappeared, and the uncle declared that he had
sought her as soon as he had missed her, and
knew not whither she had gone, or what had
become of her. This account was considered
improbable, and appearances being clearly
suspicious, he was arrested and brought before a
magistrate, where other circumstances, which
were hourly coming to light, rendered his position
serious. A young gentleman from the
neighbourhood had been paying his addresses to her,
and it was stated, and generally believed, that
he had gone a few days before she had been
missed on a journey to the north, she having
declared that she would marry him on his return.
The uncle had repeatedly expressed his
disapprobation of the match, and she had loudly
reproached him with unkindness and abuse of his
authority over her as his ward. A woman was
produced, who swore that about eleven o'clock
in the forenoon of the day the niece was missed
she was passing through the forest, and heard a
young lady's voice earnestly expostulating with
a gentleman, and, upon drawing nearer to the
spot, distinctly heard the following expressions:
"Don't kill me, uncle—don't kill me!" Being
greatly terrified she hurried away from the scene,
and immediately afterwards heard the report of
fire-arms.

On this combination of circumstantial and
positive evidence, coupled with the suspicion of
interest, the uncle was tried, convicted of
murder, and immediately after, according to the
Draconic code then in force, executed.

About ten days after the execution the young
lady reappeared, and, stranger still, all the
evidence given on the trial proved to have been
strictly true. The niece then declared that, having
resolved to elope with her lover, they had given
out that he had gone on a journey to the north,
while he had merely waited near the skirts of
the forest until the time appointed for the
elopement, which was the very day she
disappeared. He had horses ready saddled for
them both, and two servants in attendance on
horseback. While walking with her uncle, he
had reproached her with her resolution to marry
a man of whom he disapproved, and after some
remonstrances she passionately exclaimed, "I
have set my heart upon it. If I do not marry
him it will be death to me; and don't kill me,
uncle! don't kill me!" Just as she had
pronounced those words she heard a gun fired, at
which she started, and she afterwards saw a man
come from amongst the trees with a wood-
pigeon in his hand, which he had then shot. On
approaching the spot appointed for the meeting
with her lover, she formed a pretence to induce
her uncle to go on before her, and having fled to
the arms of her suitor, who had been waiting for
her, they both mounted their horses and
immediately rode off. Instead, however, of going to
the north, they retired to the neighbourhood of
Windsor, where they were married the same
day, and in about a week after went on a tour
of pleasure to France. There they passed some
months so happily, that in those days, when
newspapers were scarce, when there was no
very regular postal communication, and no
telegraphs,they never heard of the uncle's sad fate
until their return to England.

Cases of this description, in which innocent
parties suffered for supposed murders of persons
who afterwards proved to be living, led to a
determination not to permit the extreme penalty
to be carried out in any case in which the body
was not either found or its destruction fully
proved.

The following extraordinary case occurred in
the reign of Elizabeth, and while it revealed a
singular secret of a jury-box, it is not perhaps
the least remarkable of the circumstances which
attended it, that the finding of the body led to
much of the perplexity. The trial took place
before Sir James Dyer, Chief Justice of the
Court of Common Pleas, a judge of high repute,
of whom George Whetstones, the rhyming
biographer, who celebrated the distinguished
ornaments of that reign, in The Life and Death
of the good Lord Dyer, playing upon the name
according to the fashion of the day, quaintly
observes:

    Alive—refùge of all whom wronge did paine;
    A DYER such as dy'de without a stayne.

As the judge related the story himself in after
years, it maybe taken as authentic. A man was
tried before him on circuit for the murder of
a neighbour who resided in the same parish.
Evidence was given by a witness that, as he
was proceeding early one morning along a
path through a farm which he described, he
saw a man lying at some distance in a field, in
a position denoting that he must be either dead
or drunk. On going closer he found him actually
dead, two deep wounds appearing in his
breast, and his shirt and clothes being much
stained with blood. He further deposed that
the wounds appeared as if they had been
inflicted by a hayfork, or some such instrument:
looking about he discovered such a fork lying
near the body, and, taking it up, observed it
marked with the initial letters of the prisoner's
name. The fork was produced in court; the
prisoner acknowledged it to be his, and waived
any questions to the witness. A second
witness was then produced, who proved that having
risen early on the same morning, intending to
go to a neighbouring market-town, he saw the
prisoner pass in the street while he was standing
at his own door. He described his dress
and identified his person. Having been
prevented from going to market, the first witness
brought to the town the account of the death-
wounds and finding of the body of the deceased,
upon which the accused was apprehended and
carried before a justice of the peace. It was
then perceived that the prisoner had changed
his clothes since the last witness had seen him
in the morning, and he was at the examination
dressed in the same manner as he appeared in
the dock. On being charged by the witness
with having changed his clothes, he was alleged