gate again, and locked and barred it.

'But they were bent on doing what they wanted to do, and they
bribed the old serving-man--a thankless wretch who regularly
complained when he received his wages, of being underpaid--and they
stole into the garden by night with their lanterns, picks, and
shovels, and fell to at the tree. He was lying in a turret-room on
the other side of the house (the Bride's Chamber had been
unoccupied ever since), but he soon dreamed of picks and shovels,
and got up.

'He came to an upper window on that side, whence he could see their
lanterns, and them, and the loose earth in a heap which he had
himself disturbed and put back, when it was last turned to the air.
It was found! They had that minute lighted on it. They were all
bending over it. One of them said, "The skull is fractured;" and
another, "See here the bones;" and another, "See here the clothes;"
and then the first struck in again, and said, "A rusty bill-hook!"

'He became sensible, next day, that he was already put under a
strict watch, and that he could go nowhere without being followed.
Before a week was out, he was taken and laid in hold. The
circumstances were gradually pieced together against him, with a
desperate malignity, and an appalling ingenuity. But, see the
justice of men, and how it was extended to him! He was further
accused of having poisoned that girl in the Bride's Chamber. He,
who had carefully and expressly avoided imperilling a hair of his
head for her, and who had seen her die of her own incapacity!

'There was doubt for which of the two murders he should be first