ate man, over whose mind a
dreadful suspicion had glanced with the suddenness of lightning. "I will
go back to Hornby;" and he made a desperate but vain effort to snatch the
fatal instrument. Then, pale and staggering with a confused terror and
bewilderment, he attempted to rush into the street. He was stopped, with
the help of the bystanders, by one of the clerks, who had jumped over the
counter for the purpose.

The messenger despatched by the bankers to Hornby returned with an answer
that the alleged acceptance was a forgery. It was stated on the part of
Mr. Hornby that Mr. Burton had indeed requested him to lend two hundred
and fifty pounds, but he had refused. The frantic asseverations of poor
Burton were of course disregarded, and he was conveyed to jail. An
examination took place the next day before the magistrates, and the
result was, that the prisoner was fully committed on the then capital
charge for trial at the ensuing assize.

It were useless, as painful, to dwell upon the consternation and agony
which fell upon the dwellers at Grange Farm when the terrible news
reached them. A confident belief in the perfect innocence of the
prisoner, participated by most persons who knew his character and that of
Hornby, and that it would be triumphantly vindicated on the day of trial,
which rapidly approached, alone enabled them to bear up against the blow,
and to await with trembling hope the verdict of a jury.

It was at this crisis of the drama that I became an actor in it. I was
retained for the defence by my long-known and esteemed friend Symonds,
whose zeal for his client, stimulated by strong personal friendship, knew
no bounds. The acceptance, he informed me, so little resembled Hornby's
handwriting, that if Burton had unfolded the bill when given back to him
by the villain, he could hardly have failed to suspect the nature of the
diabolical snare set for his life.

In those days, and until Mr., now Sir, Robert Peel's amendment of the
criminal law and practice of this country, the acceptor of a bill of
exchange, on the principle that he was _interested_ in denying the
genuineness of the signature, could not, according to the English law of
evidence, be called, on the part of the prosecution, to prove the
forgery; and of course, after what had taken place, we did not propose to
call Hornby for the defence. The evidence for the crown consisted,
therefore, on the day of trial, of the testimony of persons acquaint