the river-bank, leaving even the outskirts of Slopperton behind, and wandered on and on till she came to a dreary spot, where dismal pollard willows stretched their dark and ugly shadows, like the bare arms of withered hags, over the dismal waters of the lonely Sloshy.
O river, sometimes so pitiless when thou devourest youth, beauty, and happiness, wilt thou be pitiful and tender to-night, and take a poor wretch, who has no hope of mortal pity, to peace and quiet on thy breast?
O merciless river, so often bitter foe to careless happiness, wilt thou to-night be friend to reckless misery and hopeless pain?
God made thee, dark river, and God made the wretch who stands shivering on thy bank: and may be, in His boundless love and compassion for the creatures of His hand, He may have pity even for those so lost as to seek forbidden comfort in thy healing waters.
Chapter VI.
Two Coroner's Inquests.
There had not been since the last general election, when George Augustus Slashington, the Liberal member, had been returned against strong Conservative opposition, in a blaze of triumph and a shower of rotten eggs and cabbage-stumps—there had not been since that great day such excitement in Slopperton as there was on the discovery of the murder of Mr. Montague Harding.
A murder was always a great thing for Slopperton. When John Boggins, weaver, beat out the brains of Sarah his wife, first with the heel of his clog and ultimately with a poker, Slopperton had a great deal to say about it—though, of course, the slaughter of one "hand" by another was no great thing out of the factories. But this murder at the Black Mill was something out of the common. Uncommonly cruel, cowardly, and unmanly, and moreover occurring in a respectable rank of life.
Round that lonely house on the Slopperton road there was a crowd and a bustle throughout that short foggy day on which Richard Marwood was arrested.
Gentlemen of the Press were there, sniffing out, with miraculous acumen, particulars of the murder, which as yet were known to none but the heads of the Slopperton police force.
How many lines at three-halfpence per line these gentlemen
