hated one another. The rector had been presented with the living in return for electioneering services rendered to a great man, and during the thirteen years he had now held it, disputes with his parishioners had been constant. Whose was the first wrong? Well, no doubt there were faults on both sides, for rectors are but men, and Mr. Parker does not seem to have shown the same aptitude for leading men to heaven, that he had displayed in driving them to the polling-booth. At all events, in 1806 he and a few dependents were ranged on one side, against the rest of the village on the other. At the head of the opposing faction was a Captain Evans, an old, choleric soldier, “full of strange oaths,” who had served in the American war, and had come to this village to wear out the rest of his days in semi-idleness and on half-pay. Some four or five of the principal farmers about were his most zealous abettors. Matters had got gradually from bad to worse, till at last the captain, in order to cheat the parson of his dues, had his cows milked in another parish, so that he might avoid tithes, which were paid in kind; but he couldn’t move his hedges, so the rector had them clipped, and claimed his tithe of the croppings. In his comments on this business, the captain made no secret of his opinion that there would be no more harm in shooting the parson than a mad dog, or a crow that flew in the air; more than this, he openly stated that a hundred pounds had been collected in the village, and would be paid “for a dead parson,” while to tempt men to undertake the job, they were plied with drink, which they quaffed “to the death of the Oddingley Buonaparte” (with the u, and a full-sounding e, reader, when you will have what was a synonym at this time for Satan,—or something worse). Mr. Parker was by no means unaware of the length to which the animosity of his parishioners had gone; he had already gained an action for assault brought against one of the chief disturbers of his peace, and he now declared that he would swear his life against them all, for he knew not what they wanted, unless it were his life; for two or three weeks past he had noticed a fellow hovering about his steps wherever he went, with what seemed a gun in a bag under his arm, and he calmly met the assurance of his servant that the skulker sought his life with—“Do you think he does, Joe?” And when on two different occasions little stones were, during the night, thrown up at his bedroom window, he prudently refrained from showing himself, more than suspecting what was in store for him outside.
The final act soon came. One June evening a shot was fired at him from a hedge bordering a meadow in which he happened to be. It took effect, and he fell, crying “Murder!” on which the assassin made up to him, and beat him over the head with his gun. Two men passing at the time had heard the cries, and ran in their direction. They found the lifeless body of the clergyman, and his murderer standing by, pale and trembling.
“Villain!” they asked him, “do you know what you have done?”
“Nothing!” he answered, and throwing down a bag in which was part of a gun, broken by the violence of the blows he had dealt to his victim, made off, pursued by the two men, who, however, being strangers, and not knowing the ground, failed to come up with him, and, giving up the chase, returned to the body.
The murderer was not known to these two, who alone had seen him at his horrible work; but the description they gave of him tallied exactly with that of Heming, a wheelwright, and the very man whom the rector had noticed following him about. Heming’s house was, therefore, immediately searched, but neither there nor elsewhere could he be found. Night put a stop to the search: the morrow brought the inquest, with the verdict of murder, and a reward of 100l. was offered for the apprehension of Heming, with a free pardon to accomplices. Still no tidings of him. Day after day passed away thus, and it was reported that he had fled abroad, but it was generally believed that he still lay concealed somewhere in the neighbourhood, and a woman even affirmed that, on the day after the murder, she had seen him leaving a wood near the village.
As the principal had eluded pursuit for the present, at all events, efforts were made to bring to justice those at whose instigation it was thought he had committed the crime; but though the state of affairs in Oddingley had been so notorious that people on hearing of the murder exclaimed that “all Oddingley would swing for this;” and though offers had been made, openly enough, to several persons to undertake the murder of the rector, no sufficient grounds were discovered for any serious steps. In Heming’s house had been found an account of his day-work up to within a fortnight of the murder, and the last fortnight of this time, during which it was notorious that he had done nothing but dog the rector, with a gun under his arm, was charged to Captain Evans—a grave presumption against him when taken in connection with other facts. He was indeed arrested, but was soon released, owing possibly to the zeal he had shown in the affair, since we find him a few days after the murder, collecting a subscription to increase the reward offered for Heming’s apprehension. But whether justice was inactive or not, it was powerless against the whole parish, bound together by the tie of a common hatred; a few arrests were made and afterwards countermanded, without further steps being taken. Nor were other agencies more successful; in vain did the new clergyman, standing beside the tomb of his murdered predecessor, erected within the altar-rails, solemnly read the command to do no murder; back from the guilty flock came, unfalteringly, the responsive prayer, that their hearts might be inclined to keep the law; nor when he mounted the pulpit, and preached to them on the awfulness of the sin, did one repentant wretch avow his crime and pray for mercy.
Years rolled on. A letter had been received from America, which stated that Heming had been seen there, and which gave an account of the means by which he had escaped from England; but who could tell? The captain had been in America, and had perhaps found means to get this letter sent over. At all events the wife of Heming still believed that her husband had been made