Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/649

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DR. LANG AND LORD GODERICH. to the constable's evidence), went into a water-hole (or pool), "and took a cornstalk, which he passed over the surface of the water, and put it to his nose, and said he * smelt the fat of a white man.' " The blacks led the constable up the creek till they came to another creek, *'and went up that for about forty rods, when a black man put a rod into the ground and said, * there's something here.' " There a body was found, and identified as Fisher's. Worrell was apprehended, and at first endeavoured to throw the crime upon four men living on his farm. At the trial no evidence was admitted as to the vision seen by Farley; but it is impossible for men, even when charged by a judge, to exclude from their minds what seems to them portentous. The seizure of Fisher's property, however, by Worrell ; the finding on land in his occupancy of the dead body of the man who, according to Worrell's statements, had gone away; the conflicting tales told after the body was found were, perhaps, deemed cir- cumstantial proofs. He was found guilty, confessed his crime, and was hanged (5th Feb. 1827) three days after conviction. The story has been often told erroneously, and has been woven into fiction. These facts are compiled from the notes of Chief Justice Forbes, who presided at the trial, with the exception of the references to the apparition, which, although it led to the search for Fisher's body, could not be alluded to in a Court of Justice, nor be adduced as evidence.^ Nothing was ever elicited to account for the vision which Farley described, or to suggest that he pre- viously suspected foul play on the part of Worrell or others. Schools of a higher order than the colony had previously seen were set on foot. In 1830, Mr. Lang, the Scotch minister, went to England, and stirred up some of his countrymen to emigrate to the new land of Goshen. He worked out a scheme for establishing a college under his own guidance. A Sydney college had been founded locally by a company with a capital of £10,000, and the founda- ^ The Campbell Town ghost-story, like many others, was garbled in narration. In the text, current rumours have been corrected by compari- son with the words of a trustworthy informant, a medical man, who lived long in the neighbourhood, and attended Farley on his deathbed. He often conversed with Farley on the subject of the vision which scared him.