HANGED IN ERROR.

Otago Witness, Issue 571, 8 November 1862, Page 3

HANGED IN ERROR.

A man of considerable property, in or near London, died, leaving an only child, a daughter, aged db.mt eighteen, and by his will np pointed his brother his sole guardian and sole executor. The will directed that if the daughter should die without having marrie 1, or. if married, without children, her fortune should go to the uncle, whose interest was therefore supposed to be incompatible with that of the niece. Several of the iclitives, discontented with the father's ultimate disposition, threw out dark hints that they ought not to live together ; notwithstanding which 'he uncle removed the niece to his own residence, near Kpping Forest. They were both one day walking together in the forest, hut the young lady suddenly disappeared, and the uncle declared that he had sought her as soon as he had missed her, and knew not whither she had gone, or what had become of her. Ihis account was considered improbible, and appearances being clearly suspicious, he wa9 arrested and brought before a magistrate, where other circumstances, which were hourly coming to light, rendered his position •serious. A young gentleman from the neighborhood had been paying his addresses to her, and it w«s stated, and generally believed, that he had gone a few days before she had been missed on a journey to the north, she having declared that she would marry him on his return. The uncje had repeatedly expressed his disapprobation of the match, aad die hud, loudly reproached him with,

unkindness aud abuse of his authority over her as his ward. A woman was productd, whosw.»re that about 11 o'clock in the forenoon of the day theneicewas misled, as she was passing through, the foivst she heard a young lady's voice earnestly expostulating with a gentleman, and upon draw.ng nearer to the spot, distinctly heard the following expressions :— '• Don't kill me, uncle— don't kill me !" Being greatly tir rifle I, she hurried away from the scene, and immediately afterwards luard the report of fire -arms. On this combination of circumstantial and positive evidence, coupled with the suspicion ot interest, the uncle was •tried, convicted of murder, and immediately after, according to the Draconic code then in force, executed. About ten days after the execution the young lady reappeared, and, stranger still, all the evidence given on the trial proved to be strictly true. The niece then declared that, hay ing resoh ed to elope with her lover, they had given out that she had gone on a journey to the north, while he had merely waited near the skirts of the forest until the time appointed for the elopement, which was the very div disappeared. He had hordes ready saddled for them both, and two servants in atte dance on liors.bick. While walking with her uncle he had repro iched her with her resolution to marry a man of whom he disapprove i,.aucl after some remonstrances she passionately exclaimed, "I have set my heart upon it. If I do not marry h m it will be death to me ; and don't kill me, uncle, don't kill me !" Just as she had pronounced these words she heard v gun fired, at which she started, and she afterwards saw 1 a man come from amongst the trees with a vvoodp;geon in his hand, which he had then shot. O i approaching the spot appointed for the meeting with her lover, she formed a pretence to induce her uncle to go on before her, and avingfled to the arms of her suitor who had been waiting for her, they both mounted their hor.»es, aud inrnediately rode off. Instead, however, of going to the north they retired to the neighbourhood of Windsor, where they were married the same day, and in about a week after they went on a tour of pleasure to France. There they passed some months so happily, that in those days, when newspapers were scarce, when theie was no very regular postal communication, and no ttlegraphs, they never heard of the uncle's sad fate until they returned to England.— Dickens's All tho Year Hound.