till his return. He consented, but almost immediately snatched up an axe and split the skull of his aunt with it, then cut the throats of all the children, laid their bodies in a heap, and proceeded to plunder the house of the money it contained, which amounted to sixty guineas. Then he hastened home to his wife, who, perceiving some blood on his clothes, asked whence it came. In reply he rushed upon her with a razor, cut her throat, and then murdered his own two children, the eldest of whom was not three years of age.
Hardly had he finished with these butcheries before his uncle arrived, calling on his way home. On entering the house this man saw what had been done, and though little suspecting what would meet his eyes when he returned home, with great resolution flung himself upon Tom Austin, mastered him, bound his hands, and brought him before a magistrate, who sent him to Exeter Gaol.
In August, 1694, this inhuman wretch was hanged. He seemed quite insensible as to the wickedness of his acts, as well as to the senselessness of them, and there can be little doubt that he was a victim to homicidal madness.
When on the scaffold, when asked by the chaplain if he had anything to say before he died: "Only this," was his reply, "I see yonder a woman with some curds and whey, and I wish I could have a pennyworth of them before I am hanged, as I don't know when I shall see any again." Tom Austin had many errors, many faults, many crimes to expiate, but he carried with him into the next world one merit—his undying love of Devonshire junket, the same as curds and whey.
