nothing done; his cowardly skin shrank away from
cutting--he dared not cut again; a little bloody scratch was all.

But the heart, the heart--that should be easier! And the miscreant, not
quite a Cato, gave a feeble stab, that made a little puncture. Not yet,
Simon Jennings; no, not yet; you shall not cheat the gallows. "Ha!
hanging, hanging! why had I not thought of that before?"

He mounted on a chair with a gimlet in his hand, and screwed it tightly
into the wainscotting as high as he could reach; then he took a cord
from the sacking of his bed, secured it to the gimlet, made a noose, put
his head in, kicked the chair away--and swung by his wounded neck; in
vain, all in vain; as he struggled in the agonies of self-protecting
nature, the handle of the gimlet came away, and he fell heavily to the
ground.

"Bless us!" said Sarah to one of the house-maids, as they were arranging
their curl-papers to go to bed: "what can that noise be in Mr.
Jennings's room? his tall chest of drawers has fallen, I shouldn't
wonder: it was always unsafe to my mind. Listen, Jenny, will you?"

Jenny crept out, and, as laudable females sometimes do, listened at
Simon's key-hole.

"Lack-a-daisy, Sall, such a groaning and moaning; p'raps he's a-dying:
put on your cap again, and tell Jonathan to go and see."

Sarah did as she was bid, and Jonathan did as he was bid; and there was
Mr. Jennings on the floor, blue in the face, with a halter round his
neck.

The house was soon informed of the interesting event, and the bailiff
was nursed as tenderly as if he had been a sucking babe; fomentations,
applications, hot potations: but he soon came to again, without any hope
or wish to repeat the dread attempt: he was kept in bed, closely
watched, and Stephen Cramp, together with his rival, Eager, remained
continually in alternate attendance: until a day or two recovered him as
strong as ever. I told you, Simon Jennings, that your time was not yet
come.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE TRIAL.

THE trial now came on, and Roger Acton stood arraigned of
robbery and murder. I must hasten over lengthy legal technicalities,
which would only serve to swell this volume, without adding one iota to
its interest or usefulness. Nothing could be easier, nothing more worth
while, as a matter of mere book-making, than to tear a few pages out of
some musty record of Criminal Court Practice or other Newgate
Calendar-piece of authorship, and wade wearily through the