CHAPTER XVII. 



THE EXECUTION OF CARL CADWALLER. 



" 1st das nicht gute gemacht ? " said the headsman, 

 or executioner, as he wiped the blade of a double- 

 handed sword with which he had just taken off the 

 head of a man who had been condemned to death 

 for the murder of his wife. 



Carl Cad waller, the subject of my story was a 

 shoemaker, living in a small village not far from 

 Schaffhausen, on the Rhine. He was not considered 

 otherwise than a respectable kind of man, he had a 

 wife and three or four children, but he and his wife 

 did not what is called get on well together. She, 

 from being once strong and active had from ill-health 

 become weak and inactive, from being once young 

 and pretty she had become old-looking, haggard, and 

 almost ugly. The children, who were once neat and 



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