passage to their own bedroom on the same floor. They then went down
stairs to the kitchen. One of them--the woman, she had no doubt--went out
the back way, and heavy footsteps again ascended the stairs. Almost dead
with fright, she then crawled under the bedstead, and remembered no more
till she found herself surrounded by the villagers."

In confirmation of this statement, a large clasp-knife belonging to
Armstrong, and with which it was evident the murder had been perpetrated,
was found in one corner of Wilson's bedroom; and a mortgage deed, for one
thousand pounds on Craig Farm, the property of Wilson, and which
Strugnell swore was always kept in the writing-desk in the front room,
was discovered in a chest in the prisoner's sleeping apartment, together
with nearly one hundred and fifty pounds in gold, silver, and county
bank-notes, although it was known that Armstrong had but a fortnight
before declined a very advantageous offer of some cows he was desirous of
purchasing, under the plea of being short of cash. Worse perhaps than
all, a key of the back-door was found in his pocket, which not only
confirmed Strugnell's evidence, but clearly demonstrated that the
knocking at the door for admittance, which had roused and alarmed the
hamlet, was a pure subterfuge. The conclusion, therefore, almost
universally arrived at throughout the neighborhood was, that Armstrong
and his wife were the guilty parties; and that the bundles, the broken
locks, the sheet hanging out of the window, the shiny, black hat, were,
like the knocking, mere cunning devices to mislead inquiry.

The case excited great interest in the county, and I esteemed myself
professionally fortunate in being selected to hold the brief for the
prosecution. I had satisfied myself, by a perusal of the depositions,
that there was no doubt of the prisoners' guilt, and I determined that no
effort on my part should be spared to insure the accomplishment of the