128 ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. 



his summing-up till the next day, feeling that a serious 

 impression had been made on the jury, and being 

 determined that they should form a calm decision on 

 this singular case. The next day some witnesses were 

 called to testify to character, the counsel for the prose- 

 cution replied on the defence, the judge summed up, and 

 it was again 1 ite in the day when the jury retired to 

 consider their verdict. About nine o'clock they returned 

 with a verdict of " Guilty," and Tawell was condemned 

 to death. This seemed quite to astound the prisoner, 

 who had firmly believed he would be acquitted. 



The prisoner's version of the case was that he called 

 on the dead woman to pay her as usual her quarterly 

 allowance, and had told her he must leave her never to 

 see her again ; that she then took a phial from her pocket 

 and said, ** I will do for myself" ; he tried to stop her, 

 but she said, " I will, I will," and before he could arrest 

 her hand, she swallowed the poison, and he was so 

 horrified that he got away as fast as he could. But no 

 trace of a phial was found in the room. The excuse the 

 prisoner made for buying prussic acid in London was 

 that he was troubled with varicose veins ; and this was 

 true, and he used the same remedy while in prison. 

 His wife firmly believed in his innocence, and, indeed, 

 some of his friends had come down in a carriage from 

 Berkhampstead to bring him home after his acquittal. 

 After his condemnation his poor suffering wife came to 

 visit him, and I escorted her to see her husband. I shall 

 never forget her sorrow and heart-broken grief, nor the 

 appearance of the wretched man. As I entered the 

 parlour of the cjovernor's house, where the interview was 



