Besides, it is a
portion vital to the catastrophe.
In Minehead, then, there lived at this time a murderer. He had not
been found out yet and he was not a murderer by profession, for he was
a bricklayer; but in his heart he was, and that is just as bad. He had
had a varied career into the details of which I do not propose to go,
had come three or four years before to live in the West of England
because it was so far from all the other places he had lived in, had
got work in Minehead, settled there respectably, married, and was a
friend of that carrier who brought the bread and other parcels every
day to the Symford store. At this time he was in money difficulties
and his wife, of whom he was fond, was in an expensive state of
health. The accounts of Priscilla's generosity and wealth had reached
Minehead as I said some time ago, and had got even into the local
papers. The carrier was the chief transmitter of news, for he saw Mrs.
Vickerton every day and she was a woman who loved to talk; but those
of the Shuttleworth servants who were often in Minehead on divers
errands ratified and added to all he said, and embellished the tale
besides with what was to them the most interesting part, the
unmistakable signs their Augustus showed of intending to marry the
young woman.
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