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The first intimation I received of the dreadful fate which had befallen George
was from the hackman whom he had spoken to to supply his place and drive
me out at ten o'clock. At the hour appointed his carriage drove up to the
door and he alighted and leaving his horses came up stairs. His face was full
of the painful intelligence he had to communicate.

`Have you heard the dreadful news, sir?' he asked as he came into my sitting
room.

`I heard the servants talking about some rumor that had reached their ears
of a man's being murdered last night not far off.'

`It is true, sir. That man was George!' he said with deep emotion.

`George, the hackman?' I repeated with incredulous astonishment.

`Yes, sir. He was foully murdered last night or early this morning. His
horses came to the stable bringing his body upon the box.'

I stood for a moment petrified. I could hardly credit the man's words. The
day before he had left me so happy and full of hope. And this was the morning
on which he was to have been married.

`Are you not mistaken?' I asked with scarcely any hope.

`No, sir. I saw the body myself. He was wounded in the breast three times
with a knife and once in the hand. It was the deed of some foul assassin.'

He then related to me many of the particulars already given. I felt deeply
grieved at this melancholly event.

`He was to have been married too, to-day, sir,' said the man brushing a tear
for his cheek.

`I know this was to have been his wedding day. Poor George! Where is
the body?'

`It is laid in his room. The coroner has just held his inquest.'

`What was it?'

`That he came to his death from violence at the hands of some person or persons
unknown.'

`Drive me there. I would see the body and learn further about this painful
event. Is there no suspicions of any one?'

`No, sir. We never knew that George had an enemy.'

`It was very singular he should have been called upon at so late an hour, and
that he should have gone on the eve of his marriage.'

`That is what we all said, sir; and especially as he told Frank the hostler,

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when he came in at dark that he was going to give his horses a whole day's
rest, in honor of his wedding. It is very strange, sir.'

`Did the hostler know the stranger who came for the carriage? Had he ever
seen him before?'

`No, sir. He was a perfect stranger to him.'

`It is very extraordinary.'

`It is indeed, sir.'

`I am now ready to ride with you.'

`I am at your service, sir. I felt so bad about poor George that I didn't
much feel like coming to drive you out; but as it was his last request, and as I
knew you would like to hear about it, I thought I'd drive up.'

`I am glad you did. Let us at once go to his house.'

On reaching the narrow street that turned down towards the stables, I saw
from the carriage windows a great concourse of people assembled, and all were
evidently greatly shocked and excited by the dreadful scene that had transpired.
With some difficulty the coachman made his way through the mass and drew
up before the stable door. In a block of two story brick dwellings adjoining
these was the house in which poor George had lodged. The window of his
humble apartment overlooked the stable yard. The yard and the street were
filled with people gazing up at the open window, through which the body could
be seen laid out upon the table. There were persons in the room with it, and
I could see one or two female forms moving backward and forward; and above
the deep voices of the multitude came distinctly to my ears the low, distressing
wail of woman's heart-rending tones. I thought of the young wife-elect of the
murdered young coachman, and my heart bled for her woes.

By the efforts of the man who had driven me I succeeded in getting into the
house. I ascended the stairs to the room. It was a long apartment with a low
ceiling, and plainly furnished. The centre of the room was occupied by a table
on which was stretched the body. By the side sat a young woman of two
and twenty, clasping one of its cold hands in hers and her head resting upon
his silent breast. Her hair was dishevelled and her countenance was wild with
the great grief that had nearly shattered her brain. She wept and moaned pitifully
and bathed his hand with tears; and then would press his lifeless lips and
call wildly on his name. It was a sight too painful and moving to witness. I
turned away and wept. It was no time for consolation. Who had words that
at such an hour could tranquilize the heart of the bereaved? Tears and the
full indulgence of her grief could only bring alleviation and ultimate resignation.
I knew that it was the betrothed wife who thus sorrowed, and I therefore
made no inquiry. Near her, weeping bitterly, sat a matron, who was her mother.
Three or four men were in the room—friends of the deceased. I spoke
to one of them who seemed the director. He could tell me no more than what
I had already heard. Beyond that all was impentrable mystery.

`But we shall find it out, sir,' he said firmly.

`I trust you will. He was a man to be loved and I doubt not had many
friends who will interest themselves to unravel this affair. The police will
doubtless do every thing. There is his carriage in the yard, the object of the
most intense curiosity. Is that blood I see upon the hammer-cloth and foot-board?
'

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`Yes. It is left there that the public may see how foully he was murdered
upon his box, in the discharge of his duty.'

`How was the body laying when discovered?'

`Sunk down upon the foot-board with the head and one arm hanging over to
the right side, the reins grasped in his left hand. He was perfectly dead when
we took him down. I keep the stable here, sir, and was one of the first called
up to see him after the horses stopped of their own accord before the gate. It's
a strange circumstance, sir!'

`It is indeed. Suspicion must rest upon the man that he drove out at that
late hour.'

`He is no doubt at the bottom of it, in some way; but no body knows who it
was?'

`He must be discovered. Providence never permits such deeds to be hid.'

`There is not a hackman in Boston that will rest until the assassin is discovered.
The police are already on the start, and I am told blood has been seen
on the stones as far out as the neck. It would seem that he was stabbed on his
box, and that he then freed himself perhaps by whipping his up horses, and so
drove into town, but fell dead before reaching the stable. But who could have
done it?'

`And what could be the motive?' I asked.

The man shook his head. Seeing that the young woman had released the
hand of the corpse and buried her face in her shawl! I softly approached the
table, where he lay stretched stark and cold. He still wore his shirt and vest
which were dyed in gore. The wounds I looked at. They were deep and
narrow gashes like wounds from a stilletto. The instrument must have been
very sharp and slender. It had also penetrated the palm of his right hand, and
come out of the back of it. He had plainly struggled hard for his life! I then
looked upon his face. The lips were sternly compressed and the eye set with
determined energy. He had plainly had a severe contest before he received
his death wound, the spirit of which was, still in death, stamped upon his visage.
The lips that should have told the tale of wrong and blood were sealed
forever! Poor George. It was a sad spectacle; and I turned away with a
crushed heart.

The stable-keeper further told me as I walked to the widow's that George's
whip was found on the road near the Roxbury line broken, thus furnishing
additional evidence of his having defended himself to the last.

The house of mourning, though healthy in its influences upon the heart, is
a painful place. I did not linger long. When I left, the widow betrothed was
seated as when I entered, at the hesd of the corpse, buried in her deep grief.—
As I rode homeward I could not but let my thoughts dwell upon the mystery
enveloping the death of this young man. It seemed to me impenetrable. That
the person he had driven out at that late hour was the author of the deed I
could not but believe. But what could be his motive? What object could he
have had in view? George was not robbed; his pocket-book and the papers it
contained, with a small sum of money, and his silver watch, remained on his
person. It was plain it was not robbery that instigated the deed. Jealousy?
Could it be jealousy? He was this day to have been married to a very beautiful
young woman. Had the bridegroom a rival? Had jealousy and revenge

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armed the hand and directed the steel into the heart of the betrothed? I could
come to no other conclusion.

The following day the funeral of the murdered man took place. A long procession
of hackney coaches composing nearly all that were in the city followed
him to the grave. The train of carriages exceeded any that had ever before
been witnessed in a funeral cortege. The heads of the horses in the coaches
were decorated with crape, and a wreath of crape was wound around the whip-handle
of every coachman.

The papers, after the third or fourth day, occupied by the events of a very
exciting political campaign, ceased to speak of the murder, and gradually it
loosened its hold upon the public mind. The Police were still active, but nothing
transpired beyond what we have already made known to the reader.

The event, however, had made a deep impression upon my mind. I had become
attached to the young hackman from his kind and pleasant manners, his
intelligence, good sense, and generous disposition. In my daily rides with his
successor, the person George had sent to supply his place, I resolved to go over
the same ground which I have mentioned as having been ascertained to have
been traversed by George's hack on that fatal night. The toll-man at Cambridge
bridge informed me that he perfectly recollected the carriage, and knowing
George well, could not be deceived. Said he to me,

`It was eleven, or a minute or two after, for the church clock had just
struck, when he came to the gate. You know the moon shone brightly and I
could see distinctly. `Ah, George,' said I, `you are driving abroad late to-night!
' His reply was very singular for him, and in a strange tone of voice,
`he must needs go early or late whom the devil drives!'

`I saw that there were two men inside,' continued the toll-keeper. `Although
it is said but one rode out of the stable, I saw two distinctly.'

`Did you see their faces?'

`No. They kept them hid. But I am positive there were two.'

`This is new information. I am not surprised that he was overpowered. And
he made you that strange reply?'

`Yes, sir.'

`Poor fellow! There was, it would seem, some heavy presentiment of coming
evil upon his mind. It would seem,' thought I to myself, `that he knew
the fate that awaited him. It would seem that he felt himself in the power of
those whom he was driving.'

I could trace nothing further of the coach until its return into the city by
the Roxbury road with the wounded man reeling upon his box, as described by
the watchman. This man I saw and conversed with. He said that the carriage
was dashing past at full speed and that the driver reeled so fearfully upon his
seat that he expected to see him dashed to the ground. He supposed, at the
time, that he was intoxicated. He was satisfied that it was the same carriage
which had arrived shortly after at the stable door with the dead driver upon it.
It was, therefore, clearly established that George had rode thus far into town
after he had received his death wound. But as his wounds were so severe it
was not probable that he could have rode far before he fell upon the foot-board
and expired. It was therefore my opinion that the struggle had taken place not

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a great distance from where the watchman had first seen the carriage furiously
advancing; probably in that lonely part of the neck not far from the Roxbury
line. I therefore resolved to make inquiries in this neighborhood; but my researches
brought to light nothing new. If any struggle had taken place in that
vicinity it occurred without arousing the dwellers in the vicinity from their beds.

I again visited the stable. The coach was still there. Neither it nor the
horses had been used since the night of the mytterious assassination of their
owner. They were now the sad inheritance of her who had been so heavily bereaved.
The carriage had been thoroughly examined; but nothing had been
left by the occupants to lead to any clue to their character.

While looking at the horses, a thought occurred to me.

`Sir,' said I to the stable-keeper, the same with whom I had formerly spoken,
`are you willing I should take his carriage and horses and let your man
drive out of town. I wish to go by the Cambridge bridge and from that point
let them take pretty much their own way. They will naturally follow the road
they last took, and stop voluntarily at the place they were driven to. It may
lead to something new,' I said.

`This is a good idea, sir, it is the nature of horses to stop at precisely the places
they have once been stopped at, if they don't go over the same road again
for a year. I will drive them myself, as I think this may lead to something. It
is a good thought, sir, and I am glad it occurred to you. But I must ask permission
of Miss Waters, whom they belong to. George has left her these and
seven hundred dollars in the Saving Bank. If he had only lived and married
how nice and comfortable he would have begun the world. Poor fellow! He
seemed to think there was something hanging over him! You've heard, sir,
how he told his two friends if any thing happened to him, that they would find
his will in the secret pocket of his coach. Yet he was so gay and cheerful,
not an enemy in the world.'

`Had he no rival? It is my opinion that he was assassinated by a rival! The
occurrence so immediately preceding his intended marriage confirms me in this
belief.'

`I have never heard of any one! But it may be so. Indeed, now you have
mentioned it, I wonder I did not think of it before. We can settle the matter
at once by asking Miss Waters.'

`Is she sufficiently tranquil to see persons?'

`Yes. I was at her house yesterday to settle the will and place all George
left in her hands. She wept so that she could scarcely speak, when she thought
how kind he was to remember her with such affection. She did not seem to
want it or care for what he left, except only for the reason that it belonged to
George and was his gift. I will go to her house to ask permission to take the
horses on this drive, and I will also ask her about a rival. If she had another
lover he is the man.'

`With your permission I will go also. I feel a deep interest in this affair,
and would like to question her touching what she had perceived of George's
gloomy apprehension; and if she can give any account of its cause.'

`I was just about to ask you to accompany me. It is a few sfeps—just round
the corner a few doors.'

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On reaching the house which was a plain wooden tenement two stories high
and painted yellow, with the entrance up a little court on the side, the man
knocked at the door with that low respectful rap with which one applies for
admission to the dwelling of the afflicted.

The door was opened by the same matron whom I had seen in the room on
the day of George's murder. It was Mrs. Waters. She politely invited us to
enter and showed us into a neat but humble parlor. In the window were a few
plants, which, as the presence of plants always does, evinced the taste and native
refinement of the maiden who owned them; and above one of the windows
hung a cage containing a canary bird, which had been the gift of the lamented
George. On our inquiring for her daughter, Mr. Waters left the room for the
purpose of informing her of our visit.

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