etter
clear your conscience by a full and ingenious confession of your crimes,
and prepare in earnest for another world, since I dare assure you, you
need entertain no hopes of staying in this._

As soon as be found the Ordinary was in the right, and that all
expectation of a reprieve or pardon were totally in vain, Trippuck
began, as most of those sort of people do, to lose much of that
stubbornness they mistake for courage. He now felt all the terrors of an
awakened conscience, and persisted no longer in denying the crime for
which he died, though at first he declared it altogether a falsehood,
and Constable, his companion, had denied it even to death. As is
customary when persons are under their misfortune, it had been reported
that this Trippuck was the man who killed Mr. Hall towards the end of
the summer before on Blackheath, but when the story reached the Golden
Tinman's ears he declared it was an utter falsity; repeating this
assertion to the Ordinary a few moments before his being turned off, and
pointing to the rope about him, he said, _As you see this instrument of
death about me, what I say is the real truth._ He died with all outward
signs of penitence.

Richard Cane was a young man of about twenty-two years of age, at the
time he suffered. Having a tolerable genius when a youth, his friends
put him apprentice twice, but to no purpose, for having got rambling
notions in his head, he would needs go to sea. There, but for his
unhappy temper, he might have done well, for the ship of war in which he
sailed was so fortunate as to take, after eight hours sharp engagement,
a Spanish vessel of immense value; but the share he got did him little
service. As soon as he came home Richard made a quick hand of it, and
when the usual train of sensual delights which pass for pleasures in low
life had exhausted him to the last farthing, necessity and the desire of
still indulging his vices, made him fall into the worst and most
unlawful methods to obtain the means which they might procure them.

Sometime after this, the unhappy man of whom we are speaking fell in
love (as the vulgar call it) with an honest, virtuous, young woman, who
lived with her mother, a poor, well-meaning creature, utterly ignorant
of Cane's behaviour, or that he had ever committed any crimes punishable
by Law. The girl, as such silly people are wont, yielded quickly to a
marriage which was to be consummated privately, because Cane's relations
were