The children, who had been cowering under the beds, witnessed the terrible scene, and though they were frightened at their father's and mother's jangling, as they thought it would result in the latter being beaten--which was usually the case--at first they kept perfectly still, for fear of what the result might be to themselves if they drew their father's attention. But when he struck their mother with the trowel and she fell forward with her face bathed in blood, they gave vent to their terror in wild and frantic screams. "Oh, dad!" cried little Jack, almost fiercely, "you've killed our mamma." And as he thus spoke he stepped boldly out and faced his father, seeming to have lost all fear in the presence of the calamity that had befallen them; and then he and Nanny escaped from the house and ran over to Tremaine's. When they reached there Nannie, who had outrun her brother, burst into the door and said in a ghastly whisper, which appeared all the more horrible because of her pallid face, over which her hair was streaming in tangled masses, giving her a ghost-like appearance: "Oh, Mr. Tremaine, dad has murdered mother! Run quick, sir, and see!" Just then little Jack came up with face as pallid as Nannie's, and though panting for want of breath managed to say: "Dad struck mother with the trowel!--and cut an awful gash in her head!--and her face is all covered with blood--and I think she is dead." Tremaine, who was really a noble fellow, though he unfortunately did indulge in strong drink, immediately ran over to the shanty, and when he arrived there he found the children's fears were well founded, for a spectacle so ghastley in its details met his view that, strong man as he was, he stood for a moment as if bereft of motion, and even thought. Nancy Flatt was lying stark dead on the floor, and her babe, which was yet muttering its low moan of hunger, was clasped close in the arms of its dead mother, and was dabbling in the blood which had flowed from the wounds in her head and face. Tom was not to be found. He had evidently realized, when it was too late, what would be the consequence of his terrible crime, and had fled to escape the Nemesis, in the form of avenging justice, which he knew would soon be on his track. I will not, however, enter into the details of his capture, imprisonment, trial and execution; for Tom Flatt was executed for the murder of Nancy, his wife; and on the scaffold he, as thousands of others in similar circumstances have done, blamed his wife's murder, his own sad fate, and his children's orphanage, to love for strong drink.