'The measure of the unhappy woman's misery and misfortune
was about to be completed. Numerous offences had been
committed in the neighbourhood; the perpetrators remained
undiscovered, and their boldness increased. A robbery of a daring
and aggravated nature occasioned a vigilance of pursuit, and a
strictness of search, they had not calculated on. Young Edmunds
was suspected, with three companions. He was apprehended--
committed--tried--condemned--to die.
'The wild and piercing shriek from a woman's voice, which
resounded through the court when the solemn sentence was
pronounced, rings in my ears at this moment. That cry struck a
terror to the culprit's heart, which trial, condemnation--the
approach of death itself, had failed to awaken. The lips which
had been compressed in dogged sullenness throughout, quivered
and parted involuntarily; the face turned ashy pale as the cold
perspiration broke forth from every pore; the sturdy limbs of the
felon trembled, and he staggered in the dock.
'In the first transports of her mental anguish, the suffering
mother threw herself on her knees at my feet, and fervently
sought the Almighty Being who had hitherto supported her in
all her troubles to release her from a world of woe and misery,
and to spare the life of her only child.
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