his daughter, or to punish him for inflicting the vengeance of outraged
nature upon the author of her ruin. What compensation could satisfy his
heart for the infamy entailed upon her and him? what paltry damages from
a jury could efface her shame or restore her innocence? Then, the man
was poor, and to the poor, under such circumstances, there exists no
law, and, consequently, no redress. He strove to picture to himself his
beautiful and innocent child; but he could not bear to bring the image
of her early and guiltless life near him. The injury was irreparable,
and could only be atoned for by the blood of the destroyer. He could
have seen her borne shameless and unpolluted to the grave, with the
deep, but natural, sorrow of a father; he could have lived with her in
destitution and misery; he could have begged with her through a hard and
harsh world; he could have seen her pine in want; moan upon the bed of
sickness; nay, more, he could have seen her spirit pass, as it were,
to the God who gave it, so long as that spirit was guiltless, and her
humble name without spot or stain; yes, he could have witnessed and
borne all this, and the blessed memory of her virtues would have
consoled him in his bereavement and his sorrow. But to reflect that she
was trampled down into guilt and infamy by the foot of the licentious
libertine, was an event that cried for blood; and blood he had, for he
murdered the seducer, and that with an insatiable rapacity of revenge
that was terrible. He literally battered the head of his victim out of
all shape, and left him a dead and worthless mass of inanimate matter.
The crime, though desperate, was openly committed, and there were
sufficient witnesses at his trial to make it a short one. On that
morning, neither arrest, nor friar, nor chaplain, nor jailer, nor
sheriff could wring from him one single expression of regret or
repentance for what he had done. The only reply he made them was
this--"Don't trouble me; I knew what my fate was to be, and will die
with satisfaction."