Captain Jack pronounced sentence upon him, and he was beaten to death with sticks. The terror inspired by Captain Jack had hitherto deterred the peasants from giving information to the magistrates of the murder of this lad. His bones lay bleaching on the ground where he had fallen, and no one had ventured to inter them. The remains of the poor boy were collected as evidence against Jack and old Bates. Another was murdered in the wood for having taken the part of an innkeeper against his comrades, who wanted to cheat him at the reckoning. A third was also murdered for a similar offence. They tied him to an oak-tree and burned him alive, first cutting off his ears, and nailing them to a tree, as a terror to others of the gang. Several would have met with similar fates, and only escaped by a miracle. “Come here,” said Ned to Master Tim. “Have you not often said and boasted that you would take Captain Jack as a deserter from the king’s army?” Poor Tim looked pale, and turned about anxiously for succour, and trembled in every limb. Several peasants whom Tim had not perceived at first, and several others, formed a circle around him, which gradually grew narrower and narrower, and of which Tim himself formed the centre. “No, sir, I did not say so,” replied Tim, very modestly. “You lie,” said Ned, laughing, at the same time striking a heavy blow on the side of Tim’s head with his stick. The poor groom cast a terrified glance around, and perceived a fellow-servant who had more than once taken his part. But this companion now gave him a very different reception; now, he smote him a blow on the arm with a walking-cane which almost broke the bone. Then Ned and others rained a shower of blows upon him until he fell to the ground, well punished for all his past boasting. The energetic and unwearied Ned kept up the pursuit of the gang for one hundred and fifty days, without halting to rest, or scarcely ever putting off his clothes and arms, or quitting his horse’s back. He made captures almost every day. The terror that had formerly possessed the neighbourhood had now passed away, and two or three mounted men were quite sufficient to send away any of the fugitives, and more than enough to secure many vagabonds. It was a truly grand affair the trial of those members of Captain Jack’s band. The mass of positive evidence was immense, but scarcely equal to the suspicion that attached to the prisoners for other crimes in which it was supposed they had taken a part. To let light into this chaos, to collect all the scattered proofs, to separate the facts from surmises, to complete imperfect cases by evidence withdrawn from other cases, and to sift the truth out of constantly varying testimony on the part of witnesses, was a most difficult task.