being, I returned to my friend Penton. On showing him the buckle, and asking him if he had ever seen it before, he immediately said: ‘To be sure I have. It belonged to Joel Singleton.’—‘And who was Joel Singleton?’ I asked.—‘Joel Singleton,’ he replied, ‘was a fellow of no very good repute. He was a horse-dealer on his own account sometimes, besides working for the worthy Mr. Sangster as a woodman, an occupation which some said he engaged in for the sake of being with Mary Sangster, the young woman poor Exton married.’—‘Then, I suppose, when she married Exton he went away?’—‘Not at all, he was with Exton for at least a year afterwards; and there were rumours about, that if Mary could have had her way, she would have preferred him to Exton for her husband, in spite of his loose habits.’—‘Do you know where he went to when he did leave?’—‘No, he went away very suddenly, and Sangster said he had gone to—to California or Texas, I don’t exactly remember which.’—‘Well,’ said I, ‘it strikes me that he went to neither place. Look here! these bones are human bones, they have been in the fire, and so has this buckle, and as I found them all together, it is only reasonable to imagine that the bones belonged to the owner of the buckle, rather than to anybody else.’—‘Why, you surely don’t suppose that the fellow was burnt?’—‘Seeing that somebody has been burnt, it seems to me only rational to suppose that he was the person. At all events, the matter must be inquired into,’ I answered.
“The next day I went to the district judge, and told him of the affair. I need not go into details with you, as you will understand all that was done in the way of search, and so forth. The upshot of the whole was that Sangster, now a very old man, was taken into custody, and lodged in prison. The evidence was so purely circumstantial, that I do not think he would have been convicted if he had been tried, but he never was, for nature stepped in, and placed him beyond the reach of the law. When he was convinced that he could not live many hours, he sent for me, and made the following confession in my presence:—
“‘Joel Singleton was the murderer of Mr. Exton. I am not going to tell you anything more about that affair, and so it is of no use to ask me any questions. I knew that he was the murderer, and he knew that I knew it, and if I had not killed him, he would have killed me; and, besides that there was the temptation of a bag of gold he stole at the same time. I had only one man about the place, and I picked a quarrel with him, and kicked him out there and then. That night Joel’s chance of disposing of me was lost.
*****
“‘I got rid of his body and clothes in the way you imagine, and threw the ashes into the ditch where you found them. May God forgive us all!’
“This settled the question of poor Calcraft’s innocence, and I went directly to New Orleans, to consult him as to what he wished should be done. He did not appear at all interested, and left it to me to do what I thought proper. As one instance does not establish a rule, I have not mentioned the restoration of Calcraft to anybody beside you and my brother, and I have not had an opportunity of repeating the experiment; but as there have been several cases of horse-stealing about here lately, and Judge Lynch has been using threatening language, there is a possibility that I may be able to renew it, and I have no doubt with equal success.
“J. Dampier.”
Such was the narrative which occupied an evening on board the Great Eastern.
FOOTSTEPS OF SPRING.
As soon as the shortest day is past, most people look out for spring. There is a certain gratification in computing from the almanack how many more minutes of daylight each morning brings, though our eyes, even if we scan the east as critically as the new weather prophets look for a “high” or “low” dawn, can discern no difference. Most men would also plead guilty to catching at the faintest gleam of sunshine, when the year has once turned, as the earliest smile of spring. These delights are at the best short lived. Soon February lays his iron grasp upon the earth; and March, if he goes out as a lamb, comes in like a lion, with bluster and storm and the snow that used to fall at Christmas. Then people find out how fallacious have been their anticipations. The weather is once more roundly abused, and the theory that our seasons are changing their cycle comes into general favour.
It is very pleasant, however, in the soft, mild weather that so often marks the beginning of the year, in that deceitful lull between winter’s preludes and the display of his full strength, to watch the earliest reliable signs of spring. Amongst these in town are the budding of the trees, commencing in renewed hope their annual struggle against smoke and dust, and the activity of the sparrows in seizing upon every coign of vantage on our roofs, and filling the rain pipes with straws. Even without visiting Covent Garden more spring sights obtrude themselves in gaunt eager-eyed boys offering for sale primrose plants or ferns, with their curious circinate vernation resembling hairy caterpillars. These were growing on some dewy hedgerow last night, but in the grey dawn hungry hands tore them up and wearily carried them off to the fashionable squares so as to gladden your eyes with them at midday, and procure themselves a meal. You know well enough that their tender hues will shortly fade and die; but who can resist buying them? They transport us in a moment to far-off fields, swept with waves of sunlight and flecked with butter-cups and cuckoo-flowers, where the wild bird flits to the mossy tufts, and his mate sings clearly from the hawthorn sprays. The lazy kine stand knee deep in the rich pasturage, and—“There, boy, take, oh take thy sixpence!” The poor lad has fairly earned it, if only for the glimpse of spring’s delights his primrose tuft has given us. We have passed a few seconds in fairy land, and may well pay thrice his fee to the imp who yoked Queen Mab’s steeds to our fancy.
But it is in the country that Spring leaves her