There was a heavy
walking-stick by his side, which they recognized as one that the
Englishman had carried.
He was a drinking man, and perhaps he had taken something that he
thought would strengthen him for his morning's walk, but which had, on
the contrary, bewildered him, and made him lose his way and fall into
the quarry. Or he might have started before daybreak, and in the
darkness have slipped and fallen down this steep wall of rock. One leg
was doubled under him, and if he had not been instantly killed by the
fall, he must have been so disabled that he could not move. In that
lonely place, he would call for help in vain, so he may have perished by
the terrible death of starvation--the death he had thought to mete out
to his suffering animals.
Mrs. Wood said that there was never a sermon preached in Riverdale that
had the effect that the death of this wicked man had, and it reminded
her of a verse in the Bible: "He made a pit and he digged it, and is
fallen into the ditch which he made." Mrs. Wood said that her husband
had written about the finding of Mr. Barron's body to his English
relatives, and had received a letter from them in which they seemed
relieved to hear that he was dead.
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