Examination resumed – I first told my wife on Sunday – after I heard Simpson was missing. She told me they were lating him then – eight o’clock at night. I was afraid of losing my work, as I was working for the prisoner’s uncle. I told Slack before I told Mr Robinson – about a week or ten days before.
By HIS LORDSHIP (at the request of Mr Monk) – I have said it was for fear William Graham would murder me. I was frightened of being waylaid, and losing my work together. The Superintendent first spoke to be on the Thursday night after the murder. He said to me, was William Graham at me in the barn at Basco Dyke, on Saturday night last. I said he was. He asked me what he said to me. I said the matter of his discourse was ripping and swearing. He wanted to know exactly what his swearing was about. I said I could not exactly tell him. He said, Did he not say that he were going to murder the keeper that night? I said, I could scarcely tell what he said. He said he would make me tell. I said I had a family of my own, and the least said was soonest mended. I did not tell him anything else that night. I saw him again on the 11th of Dec. Mr Elliot was with him on the first occasion. I met him as I was coming from my work at Basco Dyke, going on to Robert Winter’s at High Dyke. He asked me if I were not going to tell him that. He told me to go down to Staffield Hall that night. That was all that passed till I went down to Staffield Hall. I told him there the evidence, and he writ it down. I was sent for to Staffield Hall again. They brought James Slack from Basco Dyke and I told it there over again, and what James Slack said to me – that William Graham said to him that he would either be in heaven or hell in three months from that time. I told Robinson that Slack told me that. I mentioned the expression first to Jas. Slack and he said the same thing was said to him. That was long before the reward.
Henry Graham – I am the brother of the prisoner. I am 29 years old. I am elder than he. In the month of November I lived at Longdales with my father and mother. My brothers William and Joseph also lived there, and we three slept together in one bed. My brother William had a gun. We had other two in the house; one belonged to my father and one to me. On Saturday the 15th of November, I was never out at all. I remember my brother William coming home just about dark. He was very drunk. He took a gun down and set it against the clock, and then went into the parlour. While he was in the parlour my mother took the gun he had set against the clock, and said he should not go out with it that night, and she put it out of gait (the way) William came out of the parlour and got my father’s gun down, and charged it with powder and shot. The powder and shot he took out of his pocket and put them into his belt and flask, and from them he charged the gun. It was a gun that went off with caps. I did not notice any caps. The gun had a ramrod… as soon as he got the gun charged he went out of the door. I did not look at the clock, but I think it would be about six. I did not see him that night. I was never out at all. I went to bed about ten. I slept well and did not perceive my brother in bed. When I wakened in the morning, William was in bed undressed. I got up and while I was donning myself I got hold of a stocking that was wet. It was on the bed side.