Nor, in pursuing this charitable and moderate line of conduct was Mr. Woodruff, as the event proved, at all mistaken; since a calamity more fearful in its nature than any infliction of the criminal laws could possibly have been--more terrible to contemplate than even an ignominious death itself, subsequently befel the Doctor, and rendered him to the last hour of his life an object at once of pity, detestation, and fear. It seemed, indeed, that in this terrible visitation, Providence had specially intended to exhibit such an instance of that retributive justice which crime, though it escape the laws of man, not unfrequently entails upon itself from the violated laws of nature, as should not only punish the guilty individual himself, but stand as a solemn and striking warning to all who might become acquainted with his story, that though sin and evil may seem to bask securely in the sunshine for awhile, their time of darkness and pain must come, as surely as midnight followeth the noon. While the period fixed for his trial was drawing on, the constabulary of the district made themselves uncommonly active in ferreting out every scrap of evidence, as well as much that amounted to no evidence at all, in the hope of fixing the guilt beyond all doubt upon the shoulders of a man to whom everybody secretly believed it to belong, although many expressed their fears that the fact could never be sufficiently established to warrant a jury in pronouncing the doctor's doom. The whole circumstances preceding and attendant on the case were of such an unusual nature, and had now become in their leading particulars so well known, that when the day of trial at length actually arrived, the most extraordinary interest was evinced by the public to get admitted into the court, or obtain even the most passing glimpse of the prisoner. Many persons came from distant parts of the country in order to be present during this extraordinary investigation; and the yards and precincts of the castle were crowded during the whole time it lasted by a multitude of anxious and patient people, whose curiosity kept them in an inexhaustible state of discussional fermentation from daylight till many hours after dark on each day of the trial. At the same time the village of Bramleigh exhibited such a scene of bustle and stir as had no parallel “within the memory,” as the newspapers stated, “of the oldest inhabitant of the place.” The village pot-house was literally besieged; the price of ale was temporarily raised, or, what amounts to exactly the same thing, the quality of it was materially lowered, while it was sold for the same money; almost every flitch of bacon in the parish seemed placed in imminent jeopardy of being sacrificed; the butcher declared he never did so much business in his life before; and happy were all those fortunate cottagers whose hens behaved handsome enough to lay an egg every day, without missing Sundays.