Page:Black Jacob, a monument of grace.djvu/16

8 who had already attained to the age of seventy years. By a process of tedious and vexatious law-suits,he had come into possession of property, by which another family was greatly disappointed and completely impoverished. Hostility, which had long existed between the parties, be came every day more and more violent. Revenge was constantly meditated and threatened. At length, the malignity of the aggrieved party was so exasperated that actual violence and bloodshed were not only meditated, but planned for speedy execution. The old man Of seventy years was selected as the victim.

The individual whose pecuniary interests he had injured secured two accomplices, who, from sharing in his feelings of revenge, or from promises of pecuniary reward, entered into his purposes of murder. One of these was the poor, ignorant Jacob Hodges. He was selected as the immediate instrument of the fatal deed; as if murder, though perpetrated by other hands, would secure them from the