The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. 68 I sees that very beggar fellow as ought to have been asleep, and troubling nobody, a-having such a row with Pincher as never was. At last it was all quiet, and I thought as they had made it up again. Leastways, there wasn’t any more trouble, so I goes to sleep again.” ‘* At what hour was it this happened ?”’ ‘*T heard it a-striking one.” ‘‘ And the dog, you say, was killed by the beggar man you had before seen at the inn ?* ‘“*J] didn’t know. ‘There was more trouble. All on a suddenI was waked up agin, by somebody actually a-standing slap on my inside—the outside of my inside, I means--and when | looked up, natural in consequence o’ that ere, I seed him agin. He was all over blood it looked like, and he looked as scared as if he had been doing a something as he oughtn’t. Then there was sucha noise, and I heard a rattle springing, as if somebody didn’t mind the trouble a bit.” *‘ And what did you do then ?” “‘T went to sleep agin.” ‘You are a very extraurdinary fellow. And when did you find the dog was killed ?” ‘‘ When I was hungry.” ** When you were hungry °” ‘Yes; I always wakes up when J’m hungry, and never afore—leastways, unless somebody treads on the outside of my inside; then I does wake up as a reg'lar thing, and so would you.” ‘* And that is all you have to say ?” ‘‘Very happy to say it is,” said Tom. ‘‘Somebody almost pulled me over here, or else [ shouldn’t have took the trouble.” ‘‘The evidence of this lad alters very much the aspect of the case,” said Sir Francis Knightley. ‘* The weight of probability is strongly in favor of the supposition that the mendicant, who has been so frequently mentioned, is the autbor of the frightful crime we are called upon to investigate. It will be readily perceived that, although he appeared to have left the Morton Arms, there is abundant evidence to the fact that he came back to it again, for he has been seen by numerous witnesses. The prisoner now before me was not intoxicated when he was taken, nor is there anything in his behavior to induce a belief that he is mad. None but a drunken man, or a madman, would have committed a murder and then gone to sleep so close to his vic- tim, and left about, as if purposely, abundant evidence of his guilt. Iam disposed to think that by the back of the house this mendicant made an entrance, and then committed the deed, and that, in order to throw suspicion from himself, he purposely cast into the other’s room the property there found, and took out the candle.” These words of the justice brought conviction to the minds of all present, and Jem said aloud,— ‘* Do not release me, sir, if a shadow of suspicion is etill upon me. I did not, as God knows, do the deed; but I could not walk about among those who know me if I am suspected.” comicbooks. com