Chapter 21

THE BLOW FALLS.

"Father, father, what is the matter? What ails you?"

Mr. Minton had taken up the paper after breakfast. He had glanced carelessly down the columns.

The editorials were dull, and the news meagre. Suddenly, he came across a large heading--"DREADFUL TRAGEDY!" He read a few lines, and then uttered a cry of horror. He threw down the paper, and looked at Minnie. It was a look of anguish.

Minnie reached forward for the paper. Her eye caught the fatal head line. By its suggestion of horror it provoked that hunger for details which, in its acute stage, becomes pruriency.

This is what the eye, with a constantly augmenting expression of fearfulness, conveyed to the brain:--

"DREADFUL TRAGEDY.

About mid-day yesterday one of the most fearful tragedies ever enacted in this province, indeed in Canada, took place in the village of Megantic. Our readers are familiar with the agrarian troubles in which Donald Morrison has been figuring for some time past. They have also been apprised that, upon the burning of Duquette's homestead, suspicion at once fell upon Donald. A warrant, charging him with arson, was sworn out against him, and a man named Warren undertook to execute it. It is alleged that the latter, armed with the warrant and a huge revolver, swaggered about Megantic for several days, boasting that he would take Morrison dead or alive. Be that as it may, the two men met yesterday outside the village hotel. The accounts of what followed are most conflicting. One of our reporters interviewed several witnesses of the scene, and the following statements, we believe, may be relied upon. Warren approached Morrison, and, in a loud tone of voice, told him that he had a warrant for him, and commanded him to surrender. The latter attempted to get past, and said he wanted to have nothing to do with him. With that Warren pulled out a pistol, and ordered Morrison to throw up his hands. Now, whether Morrison fully believed that Warren meant to shoot him, will never, of course, be known. That is the statement he made to our reporter with every appearance of earnestness, subsequent to the occurrence. At any rate, the moment that Warren's pistol appeared, Morrison whipped out his revolver, and shot him through the head. Warren fell backward, and died in a few minutes. The dreadful act has caused the utmost excitement throughout the country, whose annals, as far as serious crime is concerned, are stainless. A singular circumstance must be noted. There is not a single person who regards Morrison in the light of a murderer. The act is everywhere deplored, but Morrison's own statement, backed by several witnesses, that he committed the deed in self-defence, is as generally accepted, and the consequence is that every house is open to him, no man's back is turned upon him, and his friends still hold out to him the hand of fellowship. He is still at large, and