Strangely enough, considering the want of precaution on the part of the farmer, coming down, doubtless, from a still simpler period of social life, not half a mile from Mr. Sheldon's house stood a solitary habitation upon a desolate tract of land, and also near the highway, which at a time not long subsequent had acquired a very evil reputation; and with this house became connected circumstances which some may think scarcely admit of the solution of merely accidental occurrence. At the autumnal term of the court just indicated, when I had become a young practitioner at the bar, a certain vixenish old beldam was put upon trial for the offence of maintaining this ill reputed establishment. Her demeanor was singularly exceptional; for she did not scruple to interrupt the proceedings with the most fluent billingsgate, and upon receiving sentence berated the presiding judge in language betokening an extraordinary depth of desperate hardihood. Inquiry revealed the fact, that her solitary house, standing upon an elevated plain of some extent, the ground rising from the shores of Wenham Lake, in front but little removed from the road, and the space in its rear interspersed with scattered groups of funereal pines, had been the resort of various desperadoes, several of whom had suffered punishment for their crimes, and one of them had not long before committed suicide in jail, to escape public execution for a most atrocious murder. Late one day, in the beginning of the following Spring, I happened to be called upon to proceed to Boston, distant some forty miles, upon the sudden requirement of certain business to be transacted the next morning in the city. It was before the railway was in operation, and to accomplish the object in view I was to drive this considerable distance in a chaise, at night and alone. I was accustomed to this mode of locomotion, in my attendance upon the several sessions of the courts in the county, and the idea of fear never entered my mind. Accordingly, starting about dusk, at half past ten o'clock of a starlit night, I had reached a point in the journey where the road rises by a gentle ascent to the plain, on which stood "the house of evil counsel." All at once, the scene and the narrative of the previous Fall flashed upon my mind. Before leaving home, I had bethought myself of a brace of pistols in my possession, which I had loaded and placed in the pockets of my overcoat. And now comes the remarkable circumstance to which I have already referred. These weapons had been borrowed of a friend, months before, when in the midst of an unusually exciting election for a member of congress, continuing some two years, and stirring up extraordinary rancor in the minds of some of the partisans of the several candidates, I had been threatened with violence, if I should attend the polls. I had notified my opponents that I should vote at a certain hour, on the appointed day, and placed these pistols in my pocket, by way of defence;