Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1896-04-17
was speeding Ont nv .1asta. !.

| was speeding on-1fo NY death.
The channel, Dover. London: hus.
thing, noisy, smoky Oharins Cross, an
other spot fraught with pleasant mem
cries.
Eyes, cabman, the Old Bailey! Drive
like wildtire, and you shall have a SOW
ereignr'
I rush wildly into the gloomy, sol
emn old court, where the sensation low
ing crowd are gazing at the prisoner,
whom they think the guilty one. And
now that have come to the end of my
fearful journey I feel sick, dizzy; the
place, the sea of faces swim round about
me.
What shall I do? What shall I say? If
1 come forward and tell my strange
story, shall surely be put down as a
mailman, but it must be done. Sudden
ly my attention is arrested by the man
in the witness box. He is short, thick
set fellow, with cunning face. 1 fancy
I remember dimly to have seen him
somewhere before He is answering
questions, making a statement, and his
OFluCuCo 10 ~ OAouhA cOho0-
ton. Of SO much am conscious.
"My namo is Ebenezer Startup," he
is saying 81 was a publican by trade
and kept the Fighting Cocks at Rother
hithe. l have known the prisoner for
some time, and he knowed my 'ist'ry,
remember Mr. Lesson too. He were a
young gent in some sorter trouble. His
right name was Clayton" I started.
This was my wife's maiden name.
"Prisoner came one night with another
gent, Mr.. Lestrange, who was mad
drunk. They was in the clubroom. Then
Mr.. Lesson comes, and there was Ugh
words tween i'm and Mr.. Lestrange-
leastways Mr.. Lestrange did most O. the
talk. T'other one seemed surprised like.
They locked themselves in, but there
was ole in the door for Buff meetin s,
and saw all that passed. Prisoner knows
did and paid me to keep quiet, but oof
became irregular, and my conscience
prompted me to turn queens evidence.
was a heyewitness O. the crime. Pris-
oner KEEP i'll the background and 'ardly
opened his mouth, but he showed a barker
into Lestrange's 'and, and Lestrange
didn t use it. I lieve e were too drunk
and too wild with passion to notice, and
Grimston fired it over his shoulder and
shot Lesson deadH'
What happened after this I cannot
tell. was innocent, thank God, inno-
cent, and SO overwhelming was the joy
that I swooned.
X y
When returned to consciousness, I
found myself in a strange room, being
watched over by-my own wife, who
gazed down anxiously and tenderly into
my face. 1t was as though the last three
years had never been and that we had
simply taken up again the broken
threads of Our lives.
There were yet more discoveries in
store for me. Ny suspicious of my wife
had been utterly groundless. The hap
less Lesson, Or Clayton, was her own
brother, who, fleeing from justice for
forgery, 1 believe, had sought for help
from his sister.
Clement Grimston had been an arch
enemy from the first under the guise of
friendship. There had been some old
family quarrel between him and Clay
ton and while numbering him he had
made me the victim of his crime.
ooh, Adela,' I said, chow I have
wronged you! Will you ever forgive
me? Toward you I am guilty"
But I knew I was already forgiven.
Ny wrongs and sufferings had pleaded
for me, and the past was wiped out.
Buffalo Times.