THE term of forbearance set by Ripley Dair had elapsed. Nothing of moment occurred on the Sabbath; Monday opened with as bright a dawn as a June sun ever gave, and all seemed quiet that morning between the forks of the Hardwater. Ralph Dubosk looking out upon his field of rye where the long, heavy heads, dripping with dew, hung glistening white, took up his cradle, and thought to cut the first sworth in that harvest which Dair had sworn should never be reaped. A more minute inspection, however, convinced the farmer that the grain would suffer no injury from a day or two's delay. He then turned himself to some other employment, but not heartily. Though his sturdy spirit was unwilling to confess it, a vague presentiment weighed down his arms and deprived his step of its elasticity.

Caleb Schowder, the same forenoon, was seated on the deck of a steamboat, gazing at the receding shore of the land which he now left with full as much alacrity as he had entered it fifteen months previous. He had around him his wife and children, and carried in his pocket-book the fragile equivalents into which his household stuff, his cows, his horses, and the rest of the movable apparatus of the farming establishment had been converted. He went away safe in person and in property. His late dwelling, now tenantless, had to welcome, meanwhile, quite a numerous throng of visitors. Though the door was locked and the key in

the possession of Mr. Newlove, they found little difficulty in effecting an entrance. Riotous guests, too, they must have been, for, when they withdrew, the dwelling was a ruin, the stable had lost its roof, the barn was no longer in a condition to give protection to grain, and, every surrounding fence being levelled with the earth, the whole premises, dilapidated and cheerless, stood in the midst of a common.

"Not very thorough this work of ours," observed one of the party, looking back upon the scene, "but we'll go through the next job better !"

Monday evening, Alonzo Safety coming in to supper a little later than usual, was greeted by his wife in a way which signified that she had something important and novel to communicate.

Have you heard it, Alonzo ?" she said eagerly; "the people have been tearing down Schowder's house, now he's quit it."

The husband's mood was different from

common.

"Certainly, I know it," he answered; "who in the county doesn't know it ?Wasn't it all over full ten hours ago?"

He flung down his hat upon the table, and seated himself with a quick and worried manner, in the darkest corner of the apartment; but a corner selected not perhaps on account of its gloom, but because it contained a high-backed, easy chair, which, with its plump cushions, offered a grateful receptacle for his small and shriveled frame.

"I suppose the people will hardly be contented to stop with what they've done!" suggested the lady.

Alonzo made no reply.

"The Newloves had better have gone out peaceably well, I must say if no lives are lost, I shall not be sorry for them.They've brought their fate on themselves." "Confound you, woman-how you talk!" "Sir! Mr. Safety! what on earth's got into you?"

"It provokes me, Betsey, to hear you chatter so unconcernedly in a time like this. Is it nothing to see houses torn down over people's heads? to behold robbery going on before one's eyes, and to have reason to expect that arson and murder may follow?" "La me! Alonzo, pity's wasted on a degraded young woman like Miss Newlove. It's right enough sin should suffer."

"What sin are you talking about?" "That forgery, of course." "And how came you so wise as to be certain she has committed any forgery?" "You have a very strange way of speaking this evening, Mr. Safety. But whether innocent or guilty, what's it to us? We read accounts in the newspapers of a hundred such doings as tearing down houses, and so forth, and never think of crying over them."

"We have, though, something more than common to do with this business. Have you forgot how you've been plaguing me to let you know what conversation I had with old Astiville?"

Mrs. Safety was now all quietness and attention.

"You have heard, too, that Emma Newlove has said, all along, that the paper was not written by her, but was brought by somebody whose name she had promised not to make known."

"And has she told who it was?" inquired Mrs. Safety, with animated curiosity.

"No! Do you think she's one to break her word? But who do you suppose that man was? Why, no other person than your husband. Astiville gave me the paper and told me what to do with it: who wrote it, whether himself or somebody else, I don't know. Betsey, what is now your opinion ?"

Mrs. Safety mused, and then answered: "I can't say you did exactly right. Yet,

after all, the Astivilles oughtn't to be outdone by these mushroom people. Persons like us, who belong to the old families, should take the part of the old families.But for heaven's sake, don't tell anybody about this, Alonzo; it would be a dreadful thing to have it known that the Astivilles had stooped to a trick of this kind!"

"So you don't spend a thought upon my disgrace in becoming their too!!"

"Oh certainly-certainly! I think of that, too; but you know, Alonzo, the As

tivilles

"Hang the Astivilles! But for your head being filled with these notions, I should never have been led to do what I have done."

"Well, it cannot be helped now," returned the wife, in a semi-soothing, semimatter-of-fact tone; "on all accounts there is nothing to be done but to keep silence. Don't whisper it to a single soul; but there's Arabella coming in now. Go, my dear (addressing the daughter), and weigh out the flour and sugar for Bridget to make that cake. that cake. Here's the pantry key."

"No! let the girl come in. It is no use to be wincing matters now. Richard Somers has been to see me."

"You haven't told him, surely?" "But I have! It seems he had suspected it already at any rate, he put me the sudden, down-right question, and I answered it. I don't know now whether to be glad or sorry that I did so. I should have felt rascally mean all my life to think that I had wrought trouble and ruin on a highminded, innocent woman. As it is, I feel mean enough. However, I told Dick Somers the truth, and not only that, but made affidavit to it before a magistrate."

Mrs. Safety had, by this time, regained her mental supremacy, and there burst upon the head of her wretched husband a pitiless storm of reproaches. Vainly did he wince and writhe beneath the chastisement. Her wrath at his treason to the Old Blood left no room in Mrs. Safetp's ample bosom for compassion. The poor man's unresisting silence was, perhaps, the best defence he could have offered. The flood, unopposed, finally spent itself-even Mrs. Safety could not scold forever. She had been standing in the middle of the floor, so that her imposing form and mighty sweep of gesture should have their full effect.

Now she sat down, panting and wiping off the perspiration that oozed from her brow. The interval of quiet, necessary for physical refreshment, enabled her to lay in a new stock of objurgation.

"But do you imagine, Mr. Safety, people are going to believe this story of yours? John Astiville will say it is slanderous and false, and whose word will have most weight, his or yours? Besides, how are you going to do about the money you owe him? I reckon he'll be apt to call for payment pretty soon!"

"As to this, Betsey, Miss Newlove will give me support. I doubt a little whether she is not as well off for money as stingy old Jack himself."

"Consider a little, then, and see how that will help you. Everybody will say you've been bought by the Yankees. That Newlove girl who is so rich, will be supposed to have motive enough to spend half her fortune, if need be, in procuring witnesses to swear her clear of forgery. The Yankees are hated bitterly enough, but what will be thought of the Southerner who has deserted to their side? You may well be uneasy about pulling down houses! I wonder if this house wont come next in turn? Your tale will be of little service to the Newloves-indeed it is more likely to injure them by exciting greater exasperation-while it will involve us in their ruin. A pretty piece of work you have made, Mr. Safety; and it all comes from keeping secrets from me."

"I thought you were in favor of these Northern settlers, Betsey. I am sure you encouraged Handsucker's visits.”

"That's another most unfortunate business," retorted Mrs. Safety. The man's suddenly stopped coming, and I am sure he has taken offence at something you have said to him. Why can't you have some little discretion? You must meddle, meddle, meddle-with everything!"

"I disposed to meddle?" murmured the husband.

49

renegade, and you have driven away the only person who had at once the disposition and the ability to save us! Whilst you have broken with the Southerners, you have not made favor with the Northerners. Both parties are sure to despise and hate the deserter."

Alonzo retired to bed completely miserable.

A large concourse of men was assembled at an early hour Tuesday morning, a few hundred yards from the house of Sylvester Newlove. There was an appearance among them of hesitancy, if not indecision. That the pause was the consequence of no abatement of angry feeling, was plain from the frown that lowered on every countenance. Nor yet was this momentary calm symptomatic of that faltering of purpose which fortunately so often intervenes to disarm a mob at the instant when every external check is powerless. These men were only deliberating where they should first lay their hands. The fact of Alonzo Safety's affidavit, and the purport of the narrative contained in it, had become generally known, and the news as it spread had excited incredulity and intense scorn. Every one pronounced it a new device of the Yankees to prop their previous villany. And the Southerners, in the midst of their rage, laughed among themselves at the thought of an attempt to impose upon them with such an improbable, barefaced falsehood. The question now mooted in that parliament of fierce spirits was, which should be first punished, the master or the perjured tool; the artful Northerner or the needy Southern traitor, who had let out his tongue and his conscience to hire.

The mass appeared to incline towards the claim of Safety to be earliest dealt with: but the voice of Ripley Dair decided the

matter:

ing the dwelling-house, like a citadel, for the last assault, they commenced with the outworks. Fences were levelled, and the rails piled up for burning; the wheatfield, which occasioned poor Sylvester so much solicitude the previous autumn, was thrown open to the depredations of a score of swine.

"Turn in the cows, too!" shouted a man; "it will make small odds whether the wheat hurts them, or they hurt the wheat."

But the cattle refused, however tempted, to remain in the vicinity of operations so noisy and tumultuous, scampered from the field with uplifted tails and tossing horns. "They are orderly critters, aint they?" observed a fellow in tattered raiment, grinning upon his nearest neighbor. "They are not up to the fun- but the hogs go it

-there's no scare in them."

While the crowd were thus busily employed, there was a single individual who took no active part with them, clad in a coat of grey home-spun, a fur cap, which had seen much service, and leggings incrusted with mud of half a dozen mingled hues, he stood leaning against a tree, and attentively watched the scene. He felt, indeed, no personal interest in the business, but it was an entertaining panorama to gaze upon. In his bosom were passions very like those which were goading on the fierce laborers whose acts he contemplated; a slight provocation, one certainly not greater than many of them had received, would have aroused him to deeds as violent and lawless; but he had no disposition to join in avenging the wrongs, real or imaginary, of others. If the question of the justice of so wanton a destruction of property ever entered his mind, it was quickly and lightly dismissed. He was not the law, nor an officer of the law; nor yet had he any share in what was done. His conscience was by no means one of those which is ready to charge itself with other people's responsibilities.

Whilst the man in an apathetic mood, singularly contrasted with the active and angry elements in the midst of which he had placed himself, was taking cognizance of the work of havoc, a figure which he had not before observed suddenly passed within a few feet of him. The first thought of the spectator in home-spun was that Rip

ley Dair had gone along, but the next moments recollection brought up points of difference; though Dair was a tall man, the person who had just stalked by was of yet more lofty stature. Shaking off his quiet demeanor, he sprang from under the shade of the tree, and hurried in the direction which he thought the other had taken.

Cain, for he it was that had passed, cast one glance, and no more, at the crowd collected in so unwonted a place; then, as if feeling neither wonder nor curiosity, plunged into the depth of the wood. Not observing that he was followed, he proceeded at his ordinary rapid pace to his cabin. The pursuer, though of tough and hardy frame, found it necessary to make considerable exertion in order to keep in sight. Cain happening to turn around before entering the hut, recognized the presence of the stranger.

Whilst the man in homespun was scanning his features intently and with a dubious air, Cain, in the tone of one speaking aside, uttered the words"Joshua Evans !"

me.

"It is you then, Henry Astiville!" said Evans, advancing, "I thought I could not be mistaken-yet that white hair bothered It has always been said that an Astivilles hair never turns grey. I caught a glimpse of you once before, but the account of your being dead together with the change in looks kept me back-but what's the matter? You don't seem glad to see me. Come, give me your hand in memory of those old times when you and I and Bryan used to have many a long tramp through these woods-"

"Man, don't speak of those days!" exclaimed the person we have known as Cain. Evans looked at him in surprise; then muttered" can he be crazy?"

"No I am not crazy," replied the other, catching the word, "nor have I forgotten you Joshua; yet it would be little wonder if I were mad. You have remarked the altered hue of my hair-it is not time which has obliterated that characteristic mark of my family-my head has been grey these thirty years. That same calamity which thus shattered the physical part of my being should also have made a wreck of my mind: Yes, would that I were mad! Oh Bryan-Bryan-Bryan! You haunt me !"

"Don't take the thought of your brother