A Narrow Escape

CONDEMNED to die! Condemned to perish ignominiously on the scaffold! Condemned to bid adieu to wife, mother, children, and friends!

The poor man wept aloud in the extremity of his anguish. His trembling lips could frame no prayer, and thus the last avenue of escape was closed against him. The most direct and unequivocal evidences surrounded this man—Lloyd Fletcher by name—and the jury, in bringing in their verdict of “guilty in the first degree,” had only acted on their sober conviction of the man’s guilt, drawn from the overwhelming evidence.

Charles Lancaster, an Englishman, and a neighbor of Fletcher’s, had been found brutally murdered, in a lone spot, in the suburbs of London. Fletcher’s pistol was picked up near him, thrown aside as he found himself pursued.

Footprints in the mud corresponded exactly with the boots the prisoner wore, and to crown all they had been bitter and inveterate enemies for months previous.—Fletcher had been heard to say, on several occasions, that nothing but the man’s death could satisfy his implacable vengeance; and then again, he could produce no one to assist him in proving an alibi. Lloyd was a man very domestic in his habits, and very devotedly attached to his family. He was known to be absent from home on that evening, yet, on this particular night, Mrs. Fletcher waited up until daylight for his return, expecting every moment (on account of the circumstances being so unprecedented) to have him brought home a corpse. He seemed to be recovering from the deep stupor of intoxication as he entered his wife’s presence on the morning described, and only knew enough to find the bed and sleep profoundly.

At the time of his arrest, his hands were found lame and bruised; so this, with the rest, made the sum too crushing for the skillful counsel he had employed,… Read More