just about to go down stairs, having put away her Sunday bonnet and shawl, when she heard a noise, as of persons entering by the back way, and walking gently across the kitchen floor.  Alarmed as to who it could be, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong not being expected home for several days, she gently closed her door, and locked it.  A few minutes after, she heard stealthy steps ascending the creaking stairs, and presently her door was tried, and a voice in a low hurried whisper said, “Mary, are you there?” She was positive it was Mr. Armstrong’s voice, but was too terrified to answer.  Then Mrs. Armstrong—­she was sure it was she—­said also in a whisper, and as if addressing her husband, “She is never back at this hour.”  A minute or so after there was a tap at Mr. Wilson’s door.  She could not catch what answer was made; but by Armstrong’s reply, she gathered that Mr. Wilson had lain down, and did not wish to be disturbed.  He was often in the habit of lying down with his clothes on.  Armstrong said, “I will not disturb you, sir; I’ll only just put this parcel on the table.”  There is no lock to Mr. Wilson’s door.  Armstrong stepped into the room, and almost immediately she heard a sound as of a violent blow, followed by a deep groan and then all was still.  She was paralyzed with horror and affright.  After the lapse of a few seconds, a voice—­Mrs. Armstrong’s undoubtedly—­asked in a tremulous tone if “all was over?” Her husband answered “Yes:  but where be the keys of the writing-desk kept?” “In the little table-drawer,” was the reply.  Armstrong then came out of the bedroom, and both went into Mr. Wilson’s sitting apartment.  They soon returned, and crept stealthily along the passage to their own bedroom on the same floor.  They then went down stairs to the kitchen.  One of them—­the woman, she had no doubt—­went out the back way, and heavy footsteps again ascended the stairs.  Almost dead with fright, she then crawled under the bedstead, and remembered no more till she found herself surrounded by the villagers.”

In confirmation of this statement, a large clasp-knife belonging to Armstrong, and with which it was evident the murder had been perpetrated, was found in one corner of Wilson’s bedroom; and a mortgage deed, for one thousand pounds on Craig Farm, the property of Wilson, and which Strugnell swore was always kept in the writing-desk in the front room, was discovered in a chest in the prisoner’s sleeping apartment, together with nearly one hundred and fifty pounds in gold, silver, and county bank-notes, although it was known that Armstrong had but a fortnight before declined a very advantageous offer of some cows he was desirous of purchasing, under the plea of being short of cash.  Worse perhaps than all, a key of the back-door was found in his pocket, which not only confirmed Strugnell’s evidence, but clearly demonstrated that the knocking at the door for admittance, which had roused and alarmed the hamlet, was a pure subterfuge.  The conclusion, therefore, almost universally arrived at throughout the neighborhood was, that Armstrong and his wife were the guilty parties; and that the bundles, the broken locks, the sheet hanging out of the window, the shiny, black hat, were, like the knocking, mere cunning devices to mislead inquiry.