Ill news flies fast. When Jim and I got down to Diggle about noon, the very first person we spoke to asked us if we'd heard what folk were saying: that old Bradbury and his son, William, had been foully done to death. A little girl going early to the inn for barm had found the front door open: in the passage, half behind the door, lay the lifeless form of Tom o' Bill's, his head cleft by a spade which, its fell work done, had been left in the passage all covered with blood. The terror-stricken child had fled shrieking towards her home. Others had hurried to the scene. On the hearth in the kitchen old Bradbury, struck down by spade or shovel, lay weltering in his blood, but life was still in him. As a neighbour bent over him he had been heard to mutter with his last breath: "Pats, Pats," or was it "Platts, Platts"? And which that neighbour could and would not say. Many and many a time as the years rolled by have Jim and I pondered and talked over poor old Bradbury's effort to tell who had done him to death. There was in both our minds the same thought: not Pats, not Platts, but "Burnplatts," old Tom had tried to gasp as he lay a-dying. Towards the end of the month we read in the _Manchester Courier_ that a proclamation had been issued from the Secretary of State's office, offering a reward of £200 for the discovery of the murderers and promising the King's pardon to any party concerned (except the actual murderers), who should discover their accomplices. Then came sure and certain information that two men suspected of being concerned in the murder of the Bradburys had been brought before the Huddersfield magistrates, had proved an alibi, and been forthwith discharged. We breathed more freely when we read this. Then many-tongued rumour became busy with the names of Jamie Bradbury and his son, Joe, commonly called the "Red Tom Bradburys," of Howood. Jamie was reputed a desperate poacher, a hard drinker, and a hard hitter, and Joe's reputation in the countryside was no better than his father's. These men were no relations of the Bradburys of Bill's o' Jack's, whose mangled remains had been laid to rest in St. Chad's Churchyard, with such a concourse to watch the sad procession to the grave as, perhaps, was never seen before or since in Saddleworth. It was known that there was bad blood between the keepers and their namesakes of Howood, and that the latter were to stand their trial at Pontefract Sessions on the very day after the murder on a charge of poaching near Bill's o' Jack's. Who, it was darkly asked, had so strong a motive to close the mouths of old Bill and his son Tom as the Bradburys of Howood? But then, what of old William's dying cry: "Pats, Pats," or was it "Platts, Platts"? Clearly whether Pat's or Platts, it was neither Jamie nor Joe. Then the people for miles around began to look askance at a man called Reuben Platt, who had been seen drinking in company with Tom Bradbury at Hinchcliff's ale-house at Road