Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/270

262 and seeing his messenger; and to make this understood, I will relate the case of the Samuel Calcraft referred to in his letter.

In April of the year 1833, the town and neighbourhood of Hystos, U.S., was the scene of one of the worst crimes which it is in the power of a human being to perpetrate. The person murdered was named Exton, a man well-stricken in years, of a most estimable character, the principal leader, and most frequently the pastor, of the religious congregation to which he belonged. Respected by all, whether members of the same sect or not, on account of his thorough conscientiousness, his store was the source from which the greater part of the population of the town and country for miles round derived their supply of articles of all kinds. On the 27th of May, 1832, he was guilty of a weakness which somewhat lowered the respect in which he had been hitherto held by the female members of his congregation: he married the daughter of a settler who used generally to come with her father to his store when he had occasion to renew his supplies of tea, sugar, and so forth. Nothing was known in the town to the detriment of or in favour of the girl; it was her extreme youth which was the ground of objection to her. Shortly after their marriage it began to be rumoured about that Exton was not happy in his married life; and this, in consequence of the violence of his wife’s character, soon became so notorious that the strongest of his admirers among the women did not hesitate to express their sympathy in his affliction by low groans and other ejaculations whenever, in the course of his praying or preaching, he made any allusion which could be twisted into a reference to the thorn in his flesh. Manifestations of this kind were perfectly understood by his wife, who thenceforth entirely absented herself from any place of worship, and expressed her hatred of her husband on several occasions. The reason of this enmity was a mystery to everybody, Exton being a man of an uncomplaining disposition, who never spoke of his domestic troubles, or encouraged even his oldest friends to allude to them in his presence.

On the 5th of April, 1833, he presided at the meeting of his co-religionists, and at its conclusion received a pressing invitation to drive to a farm belonging to a man named Joynson, about three miles from the town, and remain there till the morning; there being a party there to celebrate the birth of the farmer’s first son. Refusing the invitation, Exton shook hands with those about him, and walked away in the direction of his house. This was the last time he was seen alive by them. Early the following morning a rumour flew through the town with the speed of electricity that Isaiah Exton had been found murdered on the floor of his bedroom. The houses were soon emptied of their inhabitants, all of whom proceeded towards Exton’s store to satisfy themselves of the truth of the rumour, and to gratify that mysterious inclination of humanity to look upon a place which has been the scene on which a human soul has been violently expelled from its earthly sanctuary. The rumour proved true enough; the unfortunate Exton had no doubt been killed, and that, too, only after a struggle of more than ordinary persistency, as was shown by the state of the body and the condition of the room.

There was no proof that the unfortunate man had been robbed, though his wife asserted that a bag containing a large sum in gold had been taken from a drawer in his bedroom. The regard in which he was held by his fellow-citizens made them positive that he had no enemy among them, and the person generally suspected of having had a share in his destruction was his wife; from suspicion they very soon passed to an assumption of her guilt; but as they could not believe her capable of committing the deed with her own hand, they supposed she had an accomplice; and who this could be was a mystery they were never tired of discussing. In due course an inquest was held on the body, at which Jane Burton, one of the servants, stated that she had for some time past noticed a great intimacy between her mistress and a porter named Samuel Calcraft employed in the store, that on several occasions she had seen him coming from the room in which his mistress was, and where he had no business to be, and that on these occasions he had always been much confused on seeing her, and had induced her to promise that she would say nothing about it, promising that he would tell her some day why he went there, which he never had done.

Suspicion having been thus directed towards the porter, the desire for a victim was so great that the discovery of a knife belonging to him covered with rust, assumed to be caused by blood, was considered sufficient evidence on which to commit him to take his trial for the murder of his master. In the interval between his committal and his trial other suspicious circumstances were discovered affecting him, namely, a purse which was found in his chest, and identified as his master’s, in which was a considerable sum for a man in his position; also a watch which had been seen in Exton’s possession on the eve of his death by several persons, and a miniature portrait of his mother enclosed in a silver case curiously chased, which the deceased was known to value very highly. People being thus satisfied that he was the actual murderer, were unremitting in their endeavours to get him to criminate his mistress. Every inducement it was in their power to offer him they offered. Promises to exert the influence of the whole town in saving his life on the ground that by reason of his youth he had fallen a victim to her wiles were made, but all were of no avail in bringing about the result they desired; the most he could be induced to say was that she had once or twice spoken of her husband in a way which he had told her was not right, and that for some time she had not uttered a word to him on the subject, though he knew from the women-servants they lived apart. His assertions were disbelieved by all; but as there was not a tittle of evidence against Mrs. Exton, she was allowed to remain at large, though she might almost as well have been in prison in solitary confinement, seeing that nobody would associate with her, or even speak to her. As for the store, that had to be shut up, not a customer having entered it