The first idea was that the foul deed must have been perpetrated by some person or persons living at the Squire's, and the young foreigner, Blanchet, was immediately fixed upon as being the perpetrator. It was said that he had left the house when the dance was over, and had gone no one knew where, and for some little time the simple fact of his being a foreigner was made to tell against him. The villagers declared he was jealous of John Lane, and that Nancy had slighted him, and that foreigners were always in the habit of murdering persons who offended them in this way. Happily for Blanchet, he was able to prove that he had only been out of the house for about a quarter of an hour, during the whole of which time he was in company with two other people. A few persons suggested the possibility of Nancy's own father having in one of those fits of passion to which he was so prone taken her life. A remarkable circumstance strengthened this idea. Very near to the cow-shed in which the body of the unhappy girl was found there is a large and deep pond, and on some one saying, "But where are her cloak and hat ?" Childers, who was close by, looked towards the pond, and said, "I dare say you'll find 'em in there." The pond was then dragged, and there both hat and cloak were found. This and other suspicious circumstances caused a feeling of uncertainty and distrust to rest on Childers, and many there were who said they felt no doubt that he was the man. After awhile the idea was, however, abandoned. At the coroner's inquest the jury brought in a verdict of “wilful murder by some person or persons unknown." John Lane was indeed suspected, but nothing could be proved against him when he was examined. The poor girl's throat had evidently been cut with a blunt jagged knife, but nowhere could this knife be found. Two or three BowStreet officers from London were employed to make every possible search and enquiry, but without success, and by whom the terrible deed had been enacted seemed likely to remain for ever a mystery. A person who passed through the village on his way to fetch a doctor from a neighbouring town on the night of the murder had heard two people somewhere in the Briarly lane talking as if they were violently angry. One of them, whom from the voice he knew to be a woman, seemed to be reproaching the other in the most bitter manner, while her companion, a man, was using very abusive language towards her. Thinking it was some drunken quarrel, the messenger did not stay to see what it was all about. But afterwards, when he heard of the murder, he very much regretted not having listened more attentively, as both he and many others suspected that the woman was Nancy, and the man was her murderer. The messenger said he was positive the woman was young from the tone of her voice. She was speaking loudest and most passionately, he thought. The only words he was certain that he overheard her say were, "It is you you have driven me to it." And then "Never, never!" was uttered by her in shrill passionate tones. Although no human being might never know who it was that had given the fatal blow, would that prevent the murderer himself from suffering the fearful terrors of a guilty conscience? When he lay awake tossing from side to side in his bed; when the wind howled round his house. When the quiet moonbeams stole in through his curtained window, or the morning sun came to cheer him with its blessed rays, it would still be the same. "Oh, to forget, to forget," that would be his unceasing, never-changing cry. How he must wish himself a little child again, that he might begin his walk through life by a different path from the one he had trodden! Ah! if people would but believe it; it is of our first steps in wrong doing we should take especial heed. The girl who stays out late one night will be tempted to stay still later another. The making a companion of one whose conduct we cannot approve, will soon end in our committing the faults we once thought we should never be guilty of. Yes, many a miserable end may be traced back to what was thought only a little step aside from the right path, but that little step was never retraced. It was the first, but not the last. ABOUT "GOING STRAIGHT ON." If there is one thing more than another which conduces to a man's prosperity in this world, it is going straight on in all his dealings, never turning to the right hand nor to the left; never doing a dirty or dishonest trick to a fellow-man. If there is one thing more than another which conduces to a man's happiness here and hereafter, it is going straight on in charity and love, neither forgetting the one nor treading on the other, but ever bearing both in mind, so as to call them into practice whenever there may be need of them. Going straight on is essential to the happiness of home, and all we care for here; is essential to happiness by-and-bye and all we care for hereafter. The world, without doubt, has greater respect for those who are going straight on than it has for those who are not. The "hail fellow well met" greeting does very well for the time, and some more than usual crooked proceeding is laughed at, or some more than doubtful incident talked of, when two boon companions meet; but if one of the two goes to the dogs, the other, erst his bosom friend, is the first to cut him. "Poor fellow, he wasn't a bad companion," is his epitaph; but his companions must look to themselves, and never mind him. "He is a very good kind of person;" "An honest man that; ;""Does what good he can." These are phrases which from the mouth of a respectable person mark one who is going straight True, we do not often hear of such as these, they do not blazon their good deeds and virtues about, but their name lives after they are gone, either in their own parish or in the whole county; and if they are unfortunate whilst here, they never fail to find a friend. on. Then there is the satisfaction to one's self to know that you are leading an honest straightforward life. The bed, the sheets, the pillow, all seem softer when we lay down after our day's work is over, after a day well spent, than they do if we are conscious of some slip that we might have prevented by common prudence or caution. It is not much matter what a man says, but we know that we are all much happier when we are doing right than when we are doing wrong. Life itself is much pleasanter when we are making a little money than when we are making much, provided the much would involve dishonesty, whereas the little would be procured by going straight on. The worst aspect of the case, however, is that the world is so slow to acknowledge all the twists and bends from the straight road. Every thing seems to be looked upon as fair in business, and if you can cheat your best friend, why you are looked upon as a clever fellow. People do not see any harm in it, it is all in the way of business. Such as these seem to quite forget that a day of reckoning will come either sooner or later when such pleas as these will not be taken, and where the teaching and morality will be anything but that to which they have used themselves here. on. This is not confined, either, to the extensive business of a great town, we constantly find it in our country village. Here and there one who is esteemed "sharp" comes before our notice, whom it would be difficult to persuade that his hard bargains and often dishonest sales were anything but following out the duty which he owed to himself and others, anything but being honest and going straight It is not, either, the commission which prevents the man from following as he ought this straight road, it is more the omission. A man may be honest and truthful, but still he may be uncharitable, and so he turns down from the high road and does anything but go straight on. "I can't always be doing what is right, I must go crooked sometimes;" this we know is often made the excuse. But-and the answer is a perfectly easy and plain one--we can always do our best, and if this does not lead us to go as straight as we could wish, yet at all events it soothes our consciences by telling us that we have done as well as we can. Some people are just like a stubborn horse, or rather like a donkey, they always try to push you against the wall, and if you propose one thing they are sure to propose another; nothing you can do ever seems to please them, and the only chance of their going on at all is to leave them alone to do just as they like. I do not believe, either, in what we used to call cutting corners or going short roads to places. The short road I have always found is in the end the longest. There are more gates to open, more stiles to get over, something or other to hinder, and the distance we save we lose in the time we take. Set one man to go to a place four miles off by the road; set another to go a short cut across the fields, and ten to one the man on the road gets there first. And it is natural he should, for the road is the legitimate way, the one that has been tried and found the best, and by going straight on it we shall gain time if not distance. I will relate a little anecdote apropos of this. A dispute arose between two persons as to the nearest way to a certain place. One said the road was the nearest, the other persisted in putting forward the fields. Well, both started one morning, one by the fields, the other by the road. Dinner time came, and both had returned. "I knew there was a nearer way by the fields," said the one. "How was it, then," asked the other, "that you did not get there first, or rather, how was it that I had left before you came ?” Why, you see," said the traveller by the fields, "I went too much to the left, and came against a thick hedge, and was a good half hour before I found a gap." This thick hedge often comes in our way when we do not go straight on, and we may think ourselves lucky if sometimes we find the gap at all. 66 The business part of the world takes all kinds of short cuts to make a fortune, instead of going straight on, and how seldom the fortune is made. Those that do succeed in this way never seem to keep their money long, or to prosper on it. I am not superstitious, but this is fact, and it does seem as if they were not allowed to enjoy their gain, because they found it down one of the bye roads that leads away from the high road, and did not make it in an honest way by going straight on. If you suppose that going straight on is an easy matter, just get rid of the notion at once and for all. It is the hardest matter under the sun. It is this, doubtless, which makes people put off trying it so long, often till they get to an old age and begin to think they are near their departure. But then there is this about it, once begin it and you will not soon leave off; its results are so pleasant, its ends so lucrative; and then every day makes it easier, every little rut and rough pit got over, so much the nearer are you at the end of the road, every hour sees something done towards smoothing the way and lessening the difficulties. If you suppose it is an easy matter, and that you are going straight on, just do this. Take a sheet of paper, let it be a clean white sheet, for that will better represent the comfortable and happy state of your mind, and down the middle of it draw two parallel straight lines, say an eighth of an inch apart. Now between these two lines write "the high road." You think you are going straight on it, very well; if you are, everything is right. Now at any intervals down this line draw pairs of parallel straight lines at all sorts of angles, say one quarter of an inch apart, if they cut one another now and then all the better. Let there be a good many, for we shall want many roads before we 66 you have done. Do not write anything on them, we will put up handing posts to all presently, and they will lead to places you little dreamt of when you set out on your journey. And now, if you please, we will set out. Ah, here comes a neighbour of yours, a very good fellow, I hear. "Well, I don't know," you answer; "they say he isn't just what he should be." I was going to say write charity on this first road, this one at an obtuse angle to our high road, but now put down just the opposite. "What? why I am sure I am charitable; I do much good, and give away my money." Yes, but still you may be anything but charitable. You were not at Church last Sunday to hear that unapproachable eulogium of charity by Saint Paul; oh no, I remember you told me you were not well and could not go. You may take that second bye-road, that one going right away there, and cutting nearly all the bye-roads you have drawn on that side, write down "To Falsehood" on the handing post. I had hoped to have put "To Truth," but perhaps you were not aware that I saw you going away with some friends for a drive when ought to have been at home to substantiate your plea of illness as an excuse for not being at Church. By-the-bye that was a fine horse you were driving. Yes, it was, I got it in rather a neat way; that other I had threw out a couple of splints, and I didn't know what to do, when along comes a young fellow, who knew nothing about a horse, and offered to change because he took a fancy to mine. He never found out the splints, and never asked for a warranty, so I got the sound horse, and he the unsound one." Capitally done; at the head of that very obtuse angled road write "To Dishonesty," please. There, my friend, you need not stare, we have filled up three of the cross roads already, and in a few minutes we could fill many more. No, you never for one moment thought of these things, you thought you were going straight on, and all the time you had left the high road, and were trying all sorts of lanes and bye ways, under the impression that you were going right. It is just in the things that pass amongst men as legitimate, though wrong, that we leave the path of truth and honesty and respectability, and tread that which entirely blots out these virtues, and puts in their place all that is wrong and baneful. And somehow we never see them, and this, perhaps, because they are of every day occurrence, and no one notices them, unless we mark them down in some way or other when they happen. This it is not likely many will do, for they either do not think of it, or what is more likely still, do not wish to put them aside. What is it, do you suppose, causes many a young man to run through his property? What is it makes a fraudulent banker? What causes a clerk to abscond? What makes dishonesty in its many phases? Take up a newspaper any day, and look at its long list of crime; look how many criminals there are, of what various nature and what different degrees their offences are. What is it, do you suppose, causes this? Why, first of all, it is the confident trust which men have in themselves. A notion that it is easy to be going |