s convicted upon various satisfactory testimony; but
the incident betokens a state of security, at that period, and a rarity
of flagitious offences, which puts to shame the demoralization of our own
day. For the house in question stood on the high road and was scarcely
more than half a mile distant from a populous neighborhood, and within
less than three miles of a town with many thousands of inhabitants.

Strangely enough, considering the want of precaution on the part of the
farmer, coming down, doubtless, from a still simpler period of social
life, not half a mile from Mr. Sheldon's house stood a solitary
habitation upon a desolate tract of land, and also near the highway,
which at a time not long subsequent had acquired a very evil reputation;
and with this house became connected circumstances which some may think
scarcely admit of the solution of merely accidental occurrence. At the
autumnal term of the court just indicated, when I had become a young
practitioner at the bar, a certain vixenish old beldam was put upon trial
for the offence of maintaining this ill reputed establishment. Her
demeanor was singularly exceptional; for she did not scruple to interrupt
the proceedings with the most fluent billingsgate, and upon receiving
sentence berated the presiding judge in language betokening an
extraordinary depth of desperate hardihood. Inquiry revealed the fact,
that her solitary house, standing upon an elevated plain of some extent,
the ground rising from the shores of Wenham Lake, in front but little
removed from the road, and the space in its rear interspersed with
scattered groups of funereal pines, had been the resort of various
desperadoes, several of whom had suffered punishment for their crimes,
and one of them had not long before committed suicide in jail, to escape
public execution for a most atrocious murder.

Late one day, in the beginning of the following Spring, I happened to be
called upon to proceed to Boston, distant some forty miles, upon the
sudden requirement of certain business to be transacted the next morning
in the city. It was before the railway was in operation, and to
accomplish the object in view I was to drive this considerable distance
in a chaise, at night and alone. I was accustomed to this mode of
locomotion, in my attendance upon the several sessions of the courts in
the county, and the idea of fear never entered my mind. Accordingly,
starting about dusk, at half past ten o'clock of