The recollection of this man is still preserved at Lynn, in Norfolk, at
which town he was for some time usher at the grammar-school. A small room
at the back of the house, in which he slept, was, until these last few
years, (when it was pulled down and rebuilt,) mysteriously pointed to by
the little urchins as they passed up to bed of a cold, ghost-enticing
night, as the chamber in which the "usher, who was hanged for murder," was
used to sleep.
The tradition which remains of his character is, that he was "a man of
loneliness and mystery," sullen and reserved; that on half-holy-days, and
when his duties would allow, he strayed solitary and cheerless, as if to
avoid the world, amongst the flat uninteresting marshes which are situated
on the opposite side of the river Ouse.
At Lynn the character of Aram was, until his apprehension, unexceptionable;
but after that event, circumstances were then called to mind which seemed
to indicate a naturally dark character; but whether these were all
strictly founded in truth, or magnified suspicions arising from the
appaling circumstances of the crime of which he was convicted, I am unable
to determine. The following, derived from unquestionable authority, having
been related by Dr. L., who was master of the grammar-school at the time,
may serve as a sample:--there can be no doubt but that the worthy Dr.
himself believed his suspicions well founded, as he used to tremble when
he related it. It was customary for the parents of the scholars, on an
appointed day, to dine with the master, at which time it was expected they
would bring with them the amount of their bills. It was late at night,
after one of such meetings, that Dr. L. was awakened by a noise at his
bed-room door; he rose up, and going into the passage which led to the
staircase, but which was not in the direct way from Aram's bed room to the
ground-floor, he discovered the usher _dressed_. Having questioned him as
to the object of his rising at that unseasonable hour, Aram confusedly
answered that he had been taken unwell, and had been obliged to go do down
stairs. The Dr. then retired, unsuspiciously, to bed. From the combined
circumstances of the noise at the door, his great agitation and confusion,
and from his being found in the passage, the worthy Dr., in later years,
had no doubt, that, from its being known to Aram that a considerable sum
of money was in his bed-room, Aram intended nothing less than to rob him;
and no doubt, continued the narrator, he _would_ have murdered me too, if
it had been rendered necessary, from my discovering or opposing him.
The spot just at the entrance to the play-ground, at which Aram was taken
into custody by two strange men from Yorkshire, is still remarked, and
generally by the young scholar in a tremulous whisper.--_Literary Gazette_.
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