I went off in a towering rage, to think of the reception
I had met, and that too after an absence of
a whole night. I had been bitten by my own dog,
and driven from my own doors by my own servants!
But there was something in these circumstances to
admonish me of the change that had come over
me. They reminded me of a fact that was not
always present to my thoughts,—to wit, that I was
no longer Sheppard Lee, but Mr. John Hazlewood
Higginson, a very different sort of personage altogether.

To account for my forgetfulness of this important
transformation, I must relate that, although I
had acquired along with his body all the peculiarities
of feeling, propensity, conversation, and conduct
of Squire Higginson, I had not entirely lost
those that belonged to Sheppard Lee. In fact, I

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

may be said to have possessed, at that time, two
different characters, one of which now governed
me, and now the other; though the squire's, it must
be confessed, was greatly predominant. Thus, the
moment after the transformation, I found myself
endowed with a passion for shooting, as if I had
had it all my life long, a buoyant tone of mind, and,
in addition, as I by-and-by discovered, with some.
what a hot temper; none of which had ever been
known to me before. The difficulty was, that I
could not immediately shake off my old Sheppard
Lee habits; and the influence of these, perhaps (if
one must scrutinize into the matter), more than the
absolute retention of any other native peculiarities,
drove me into the inconsistencies of which I was
for a short time guilty. But I will not trouble the
reader with philosophizing.

I perceived, from the repulse I had received from
Jim Jumble, that it now became me to sink his old
master altogether, which I was very well content
to do, and resolved accordingly; although I could
not help thinking, as I strode over the forty-acre
farm, how much satisfaction I should have, now
that I was a rich man, in putting it into fine order.
But these thoughts were soon driven from my mind
by Ponto making a set at some game, and in a moment
I was banging away, right and left, and slaughtering
the birds in the finest style imaginable.

Oh, the delights of shooting woodcock! It is
rather hot work, though, of a midsummer day; and
notwithstanding the prodigious satisfaction I had

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

in pursuing the sport, I felt that my satisfaction
would have been still greater, had I been a few
stone lighter. I began to think Squire Higginson's
fat rather inconvenient; and I had the same opinion
of a touch of asthma, or something of that nature,
which I found in his lungs; and, besides, there
was a sort of whizzing, and humming, and spinning
in my head, where they had been all the morning,
which were not altogether agreeable.

In consequence of these infirmities of my new
body, I began, after a while, to weary of the sport;
and was just on the point of setting off to the village
to get my dinner, when a crowd of men made their
appearance in the marsh, and setting up a great
shout at sight of me, began to run towards me. I
could not conceive the cause of such a concourse,
nor could I imagine for what reason they directed
their steps towards me; but hearing them utter the
most furious cries, and perceiving that a multitude
of dogs they had with them were rushing against
me, as if to devour me, I was seized with alarm,
and began to retreat towards a wood that was not
far off.

This evidence of terror on my part only caused
the people to utter louder and more savage cries,
besides setting the dogs to running faster; and these
ferocious animals gaining upon me, and being on
the point of tearing me to pieces, I was obliged to
let fly my piece among them, whereby I shot one
dead, and disabled two or three others. I then defended
myself with the breech of my gun, until the

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

men came up; one of whom tripped up my heels,
while the others seized and disarmed me, crying
out “that I was a murderer; that I was found out,
and should be hanged, if there was any law in the
county.”

I was confounded at this charge; but how much
greater was my amazement, when I understood, as
they haled me along towards the village, which
they did very roughly, that I was accused of having
murdered Sheppard Lee—that is, my own
identical self!

This accusation appeared to me so preposterous,
that in spite of my indignation (for my fears
had now subsided), I burst into a laugh; which
only made them rail at me more furiously than
I can express. “Hear him!” said they; “he
laughs! He thinks, because he is a rich man, he
can shoot any poor man he pleases, and buy himself
off. But we will show him there's law in
Jersey for aristocrats as well as poor men, and
that we can hang a purse-proud man as soon as a
beggar.”

And so they went on reviling me as if I had
been the greatest criminal in the land, and dragging
me, as they said, to a squire, who would soon
show me what law was.

I tried to reason with them, but it was all in
vain; I then fell into a passion, and cursed and
swore at them in a way which I am certain I
never did before at any human being; having
always had, while Sheppard Lee, a great horror of

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

profanity; but this was just as fruitless an expedient
as the other. They dragged me on until we
reached the village, where we found all in a
hubbub, men, women, and children running about
as if mad, and exclaiming that “Squire Higginson
had murdered Sheppard Lee, and hid the body in
the Owl-roost Swamp.” As soon as they saw
me they set up a shout, and some low fellows
among them raged in such a degree that I thought
they would have massacred me in the street.
They crowded round me, hustled me, seized me
by the collar, shook their fists in my face, and,
in general, testified such a vindictive concern for
the murder of poor Sheppard Lee, as they called
him, that I might have supposed there was never
a man more widely beloved than myself, had I
not known otherwise—or, rather, had I not been
too closely occupied to suppose any thing about it.

In a word, they carried me before Squire Andrew
Parkins, who was a fat man that I heartily
despised; and here they called upon him for justice,
while I did the same thing, swearing that I
would prosecute every rascal of them for assault
and battery, conspiracy, defamation, and the Lord
knows what beside; all of which, it seems, only
inflamed the mob against me the more. They
charged me with the murder, and the evidence they
brought to support the charge appeared to Justice
Parkins sufficient to authorize his issuing a mittimus.
There were twenty persons to swear I had,
two or three days before, acknowledged having

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

had a quarrel with Sheppard Lee on his farm—
that is, the forty-acre—and that he had ordered me
off; and there were twenty more to swear I was a
man of such a hot and furious temper, that it was
a wonder I had not shot the poor man down on the
spot. Then came old Turnbuckle and his son,
who swore that the ghost of Sheppard Lee had
come to them in the gray of the morning, calling
for help, and assuring them that he (or his body)
lay murdered under the beech-tree in the hollow;
that as soon as the phantom had vanished, and they
recovered from their fears, they roused the neighbours,
and sending some to my house, who learned
I had not been at home all night, the others proceeded
to the hollow, where they found a freshly-dug
grave, with spade and mattock in it, and near
it they lit upon my hat and one of my shoes, which
latter was bloody, as well as the grass on which
it lay; that then, looking round them, they discovered
me (that is, John Higginson), sneaking
away through the reeds on the marsh in a suspicious
way; that at that moment old Jim Jumble
was brought forward, who said I (John Hazlewood
Higginson) had come to the house, shot his
bulldog, threatened to blow his brains out, and
bragged that I had just finished, or, in other words,
murdered his master, Sheppard Lee; and, finally,
that this confirming the suspicions they all had
against me, they pursued me (I retreating and
shooting their dogs, like a man conscious of guilt,

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

and anxious to escape), and captured me, not without
a furious resistance on my part.

On the strength of this testimony I was committed
to jail, whither I was conducted amid the
shouts of the mob. Squire Parkins (doubtless to
beg off as well as he could) afterward privately
assured me, that he had committed me to prison,
not from any belief that I was guilty, or that the
testimony really warranted such a step, but because
he was afraid the people would otherwise
murder me, and considered that the only way to
protect me from their violence.

Meanwhile, there was a great search made for
my—that is, Sheppard Lee's—body; the general
belief being that I—that is, John H. Higginson—
had cast it into the swamp, after having been at
the pains to dig a grave, wherein I at first designed
to hide it; and I do verily believe that, had my
unfortunate old casing been found, I should have
begun my new existence in the body of the man
I had so much envied by being hanged for the
murder. Its sudden disappearance was therefore
not more extraordinary than it was really fortunate.

p016-088

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