trouble," and absconded. This was his latest
account of the matter; but no one believed
it; although he brought a friend of his to
swear "that he had known Jerry Cutts, the
tinker, from a boy; and that he (Jerry Cutts)
was always a great liar"—a fact which did
not seem to have at all lessened his esteem
for him.

Poor old Martin was buried in the parish
churchyard, about a week after: we set up a
stone there to his memory. No one grieved for
his sad fate, or missed him more than I did.
The place seemed altogether changed without
him, and I should have been glad to return
home at once, but for the interest of seeking
for evidence of the murderer. Public opinion
was strong against the tinker; but the
woman had never been found, though we
had advertised her in the Hue and Cry. I
had always some doubts of his guilt,
notwithstanding his shuffling, and the suspicious
circumstance of the woman absconding;
and I mentioned them to my uncle. The
tinker persisted in the truth of his last
story. He said that his only reason for
prevaricating, was his fear of getting into
trouble by the woman's theft; but that if he
had known that he should be charged with a
murder, he would have told the whole truth
at once. He declared that the woman could
corroborate what he said if she were found:
but that she was apparently determined to
desert him in his trouble. He even gave us
some clue to her probable hiding place;
though the officers afterwards lost all trace
of her. Enquiries were made into the tinker's
history, and it was found that he, as well as
the woman, had been long known about the
country, and that both had been in jail for
theft; a circumstance that told much against
them in the minds of the public. Poor Jerry
not being yet cured, in spite of his protestations,
of his unfortunate propensity, declared
that he had " never been inside a prison in
his life;" but a jailor from Bury being brought
forward, and addressing him with " How do
you do, Mr. Cutts?" he was compelled to
admit that he knew that gentleman slightly.

A circumstance soon afterwards occurred
tending, more than anything before known,
to exculpate the tinker. The ground between
Borsted church and the spot where he
pretended to have met the man with the
packs—and along which, if his story was true,
the murderer must have passed just before—
was thoroughly searched; and the result was
the discovery of a heavy "life-preserver"
in a dry ditch. Some traces of blood were
distinctly noticeable in the crevices of the
plaited steel wire. The handle was worn
bright, and had other distinguishing marks,
by which a dealer in old iron identified it as
being one that he had sold to a man, only a
few days before the murder; and his description
of this man exactly tallied with the
account given by the tinker. The surgeon
declared the wound to be more likely to have
been made with this weapon than with the
soldering iron.

The general conviction that the tinker was
the murderer had somewhat relaxed the
efforts of the officers in other quarters. But
a reaction had now set in, and conferences
were held at my uncle's on the probabilities
of whatever suppositions might occur to us.
The murder appeared not to have been
committed for the mere sake of robbery: rifling the
old man's pocket was probably an afterthought.
This was shewn by the fact of the scuffle
having evidently taken place in the church-
yard, whither he must have pursued the
murderer; a fact that at once set aside the
hypothesis that the latter had planned and
begun the attack. There could be little
doubt that Martin had noticed again the
light in the churchyard of which he had
spoken to me, and that he had sprung over
the wall, and found himself at once engaged
in a struggle with smugglers—whether one
or more—who had concealed some goods
there: and that either by force or cunning
he had been overcome. This would entirely
agree with the tinker's story; and the
circumstance of the life-preserver finally
convinced us that the man with the packs was
the murderer.

It was immediately resolved to search the
house of the Baters, who were generally
suspected to have a hand in any smuggling
done in those parts—a suspicion which old
Martin himself, more than any others, had
always encouraged. It will be remembered
that it was a son of these people who had
attacked the old man once before, and had
been transported in consequence for seven
years. This was nearly eight years before,
and it was probable that he had returned to
England; although he had not yet been seen
in the neighbourhood. Suspicion had not
rested upon him—the extraordinary facts of
the tinker's capture having diverted people's
attention; and the circumstances of the
murder preventing the supposition that it
had been instigated by feelings of revenge.
The description of the man who bought the life-
preserver was found to bear little resemblance,
except in the matter of height, with my
uncle's recollection of Jem Bater: no stranger
had been seen lately in the neighbourhood,
nor at the Baters' house: indeed, we learned
from a man who had lately been there to buy
some articles, that Mrs. Bater stated that she
had just received a letter from her son, and
that she expected him home shortly.

It was, however, determined that a party of
us, including an officer, should make an entry
there suddenly at night. A search-warrant
was procured privately; and a little after
dark one night we contrived, by means of a
plank, to cross a ditch into a garden at the
back of the house; but the doors and windows
being bolted we could not obtain an entry
that way without alarming the inmates. There
were some salt water trenches in the garden,