Page:One Peep Was Enough.pdf/6

304 dear children; I dare say he is some relation of theirs; but to think of his coming to the White Hart—it's no place for his doings, I can tell him: he sha’n’t poison his wife in my house; out he goes this very night—I’ll take the letter to him myself." "Lord! Lord! I shall be ruined, if it comes to be known that we take a look into the letters;" and the post-mistress thought in her heart that she had better let Mr. Williams poison his wife at his leisure. Mrs. Mary Smith, too, reprobated any violent measures; the truth is, she did not wish to be mixed up in the matter; a gentlewoman with an annuity and a front and back parlour was rather ashamed of being detected in such close intimacy with the post-mistress and the landlady. It seemed likely that poor Mrs. Williams would be left to her miserable fate. "Murder will out," said the landlord, the following morning, as he mounted the piebald pony, which, like Tom Tough, had seen a deal of service; and hurried off in search of Mr. Crampton, the nearest magistrate. Their perceptions assisted by brandy and water, he and his wife had sat up long past "the witching hour of night," deliberating on what line of conduct would be most efficacious in preserving the life of the unfortunate Mrs. Williams; and the result of their deliberation was to fetch the justice, and have the delinquent taken into custody at the very dinner table which was intended to be the scene of his crime. "He has ordered soup to-day for the first time; he thinks he could so easily slip poison into the liquid. There he goes; he looks like a man who has got something on his conscience," pointing to Mr. Williams, who was walking up and down at his usual slow pace. Two o’clock arrived, and with it a hack chaise: out of it stept, sure enough, a lady and gentleman. The