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The magistral investigation resulted in the discharge of all
the family but Chilion, who was committed to answer before
the Supreme Court, which would sit the next week. The
testimony of the witnesses was varying and confused, as their
observation had been uncertain and indistinct. What with
the trepidation of the moment, and the clouded condition in
which the catastrophe found the party, it took no small sagacity
and patience in Esq. Bowker, who seemed disposed to conduct
the case with entire candor, to distinguish, resolve, and average
the singular materials that were submitted to his attention.
Chilion himself would make neither confession nor denial.
He was seen with a file in his hand, an instrument without an
haft, and consequently pointed at both ends. Ambrose Gubtail
testified he saw him throw it towards young Smith, and
that immediately thereupon the deceased cried out. Beulah
Ann Orff said she saw Margaret cross the fire-place, and take
the file from her brother's hand; but Obed and Abel Wilcox
both declared they were sitting near, observing her passages
with Solomon, and that she did not move from the chimney
corner. The connection of Pluck with the affair hovered for
a while in doubt; the Widow averring that she did not know
but he might have seized the instrument and sent it on its
fatal errand, as she heard him wrangling at Solomon, and saw
him fling out his arms passionately; but Grace Joy said she
was looking at him, and that he was only beating the table
with his fists. The Widow also said that Rose was at the
moment walking away from Chilion towards the back side of
the room. Brown Moll, it was clearly shown, had followed
the Master in his retreat to the floor. Regarding Hash, Sibyl
Radney testified that he was employed with other missiles
than those of iron, even assailing herself with the importunities
of love; she also testified that Smith was sitting on a tottering
milking-stool, that he fell simultaneously with the overthrow
of the pumpkins and the table, that she afterwards found the
file fixed in one of the pumpkins, and another one apparently
grazed by the same instrument; and that she believed he was
upset from his stool by a pumpkin dropping upon it, and that

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if the wound of which he died was occasioned by the file, she
conjectured it was diverted from its course by striking one
pumpkin and fixing itself in another, which in its descent
drove the instrument into his neck. She said in addition that
she thought the wound might have been occasioned by the
edge of a piece of crockery, since the table with its various
contents was precipitated at the same moment with the pumpkins,
and fragments of glass and other things quite covered
the body. To rebut this, Zenas Joy declared Solomon fell
before the pumpkins did. Sibyl replied that the pumpkins,
the table, which was composed of two heavy boards, and its
furniture, precipitated upon the man were sufficient to kill
him. It was, however, the opinion that he came to his end by
the loss of blood from the jugular vein, and it was the unanimous
sentiment of all, that that vein was opened by the direct
course and momentum of the file.

The deceased was buried the next day, and at his funeral
was exhibited every circumstance of solemn array and mournful
impressiveness. The body was carried to the Church,
where Parson Welles preached an appropriate sermon, and
followed to the grave by a long train of people swayed by
alternate and mingled grief and indignation.

On the succeeding day Mr. Smith, the father of the deceased,
came to the Pond claiming the expiration of the conditions on
which Pluck held the estate, and ordered the immediate removal
of the family; who were consequently obliged to look
for new homes. Pluck went off with his kit on his back to
seek employment wherever it should offer. Hash and his
mother were invited to Sibyl Radney's. Of Nimrod and Rose
nothing had been heard. Bull followed Hash. When Margaret
had assisted the rest away, she had time to turn her two
birds and Dick, the squirrel, out of doors, and gather a bundle
of clothes and Chilion's violin, before Mr. Smith proceeded to
nail up the house. She besought her mother and Hash to
take the birds and squirrel, but the hurry, preoccupation and
irritation of the moment were too great to pamper wishes of
that sort. Up the Via Salutaris she saw her father, her
mother, her brother and Sibyl filing along, drearily, all with
heavy packs on their shoulders. Deacon Penrose sent up an
attachment on the oxen and cart which were driven by the
Constable, Capt. Tuck, down the Delectable Way. Her own
course had been resolved upon; she was going to Esq. Beach's
to seek occupation, be near Chilion, and fulfil her engagement
as Governess. She paused a moment, looking up and down

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the road, and back to Mons Christi, then striking across the
Mowing, buried herself in the thickets of the Via Dolorosa.
Reaching the Village, she turned into Grove street, and went
directly to the Squire's. Mrs. Beach received her at the door,
and asked her into the parlor. She was barely seated, when
the door opened, and in poured a parcel of children.

“Julia, William,” said Mrs. Beach, “why do you behave so
unmannerly? How often have I told you not to come into
the house with a noise, and those other boys havn't scraped
their feet.”

“I have got a tame squirrel here, Ma,” said William
Beach.

“What are you doing with that dirty thing?” exclaimed
Mrs. Beach.

“It's the Ma'am's,” said Julia Beach, “Arthur said it
was.”

“We found it trying to get in at the door,” said Arthur
Morgridge.

“She isn't your Ma'am now, “said Mrs. Beach.”

“Isn't she going to live here, and teach us?” asked
Julia.

“Not as we know of,” replied the mother. “You take
away the squirrel, and run to your plays.”

Dick meanwhile wrested himself from the hand of the boys,
and leaped into the lap of his mistress.

“Take the creature away,” reiterated Mrs. Beach.

Margaret interceded in behalf of her pet. “I shan't touch
it, if the Ma'am wants to keep it,” said Consider Gisborne.
“Come, let us see if we can't get the kite up.” The children
retreated with as much impetuosity as they entered.

“Did you expect to bring that creature with you?” asked
Mrs. Beach.

“I know not how he came,” replied Margaret, “I left him
at home;” and she might have added, that delaying on her
steps two or three hours in the woods, the squirrel, shut out of
doors, and growing tired of silence and solitude, concluded
to follow her, a trick he had more than once in his life attempted.

“What have you in that green sack?” enquired the lady.

“It is my brother Chilion's fiddle,” replied Margaret; “I
thought it would be some comfort to him in the Jail, and so I
brought it down.”

“Your brother, indeed!” rejoined Mrs. Beach. “A sorry
crew of you. I must inform you that the Squire and myself

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have judged it best to dispense with your services. We
thought it would be extremely bad to have one of your family
a member of ours. Since the dreadful things that have happened
at your house, it would be unsafe to our property, and
perhaps to our lives, and certainly detrimental to the morals
of the children, to have anything to do with you. And it
would be wrong not to break a promise made with those who
have proved themselves so unworthy to keep it.”

“What shall I do?” asked Margaret passionately.

“It is of no use for you to practise any dissimulation, Miss
Hart. I quite wonder that you should have had the presumption
to come at all. We were going to send word that we did
not want you. But your anxiety for your brother, it seems, has
brought you down even sooner than was anticipated! If worse
comes to worst, you can go to the Poor-house, perhaps you
can find employment with that class of people to whom you
properly belong. I am not unreasonable,—for the time has
come when we can no longer tamper with low and vile characters.”

The appearance of the lady evidently encouraged no protestation
or parley, and Margaret withdrew. She stood on the
door-steps, with her bundle and squirrel in her arms, disordered
in purpose, palsied in feeling, and almost blind in
vision, from this unforeseen turn of affairs. The children,
who were trying to fly a kite on the grounds in front of the
house, came around her.

“Are you not going to stay?” asked Julia Beach.

“No,” replied Margaret.

“Won't the Ma'am help us fly the kite?” said Consider
Gisborne.

“Yes,” replied Margaret.

“The string is all in a snarl,” said Arthur Morgridge.
Margaret, most mechanically, most mournfully, fell to getting
out the knot, then, having dropped her luggage, ran with the
string, and when the kite was fairly up, offered it to one of the
boys to hold.

“She's crying,” said Julia Beach. “She is crying!” was
the word whispered from one to another. The kite was at
once dropped, and as she resumed her burden, the children
huddled about her.

“What makes you cry?” said Julia.

“Oh! I cannot tell,” said Margaret; “I have no home, no
friends, no place to go to.”

“Never mind the kite,” said Consider. “I'll carry this,”

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he added, seizing the sack containing the violin; “I don't care
if she did put me on the girl's side, she is the best School-Ma'am
I ever went to.”

“I will carry this,” said Arthur, taking the clothes-bundle
from her hand.

“I want to have the squirrel,” said Julia.

“Let me take hold with you, Arthur,” said Mabel Weeks.

“Where are you going?” asked Margaret.

“I don't know,” said Consider, “we wanted to help the
School-Ma'am.”

“I am going to take the violin to my brother who is in the
Jail, he loves to play on it. Perhaps you wouldn't like to go
there.”

“Deacon Ramsdill was at our house, and said he didn't
believe he meant to kill Solomon Smith,” said Consider.

“I remember what you said when you kept the school, that
we musn't hate anybody,” said Arthur.

“Ma said people wasn't always wicked that was put in Jail,”
said Mabel.

Preceded by the children bearing their several loads, Margaret
went towards the Green. Approaching the precincts of
the Jail she found her way impeded by large numbers of people,
who were loitering about the spot, of all ages and sexes.
Some sat on the Stocks, one stood on the top of the Whipping
Post, several had climbed into the Pillory. She was greeted
with sundry exclamations of dislike, and the aspect of the
people was not the most inviting. Even threatening words
were bestowed upon her, and some went so far as to jostle her
steps. She stopped while the children gathered closer to her,
and then they all proceeded in a solid body together. The
crowd parted, and she went through a long file of people. “I
can see the Devil in her eye,” said one. “The whole family
ought to be hung,” said another. “Poor Mr. Smith's heart is
most broke,” said Mistress Hatch. “How Damaris takes on!”
said Beulah Ann Orff. “I always knew Chil would come to
a bad end,” said Mistress Hatch, “there were spots on his
back when he was born, and his mother cut his finger nails
before he was a month old.” “There was a looking-glass
broke at our house the week before,” said Mistress Tuck.
“I had a curious itching in my left eye,” said Mistress Tapley,
“and our Dorothy dropped three drops of blood from her
nose.” “There was a great noise of drums and rattling of
arms in the air, just before the Spanish War broke out,” said
old Mr. Ravel. “The Saco River run blood when the last

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War begun,” said Capt. Hoag; “I was down in the Province
and saw it.” “He beat his head all to smash with a froe,”
said one boy. “No, it was with an axe,” said another; “Biah
Tapley told Aurelius Orff, and Aurelius told Myra Dunlap,
and Myra told me.” “They are the most dangerous wretches
that ever walked God's earth,” said Mr. Cutts. Coming to the
porch of the Jail house, Margaret took the baggage into her
own hands, dismissed her guard, who ran back to their sports,
and sought of Mr. Shooks admission to Chilion's cell. The
reply of that gentleman was brief and explicit. “Troop!
gump,” said he, “don't hang sogering about here, you sauce-box.
Havn't you smelt enough of these premises? It will be
your turn to be hung next. Pack and be off.” She turned
from the door. A hundred people stood before her, they
closed about her, she encountered the gaze of a hundred pairs
of eyes, dark and frowning; Mr. Shooks, by the application
of his hand to her shoulder helped her from the steps to the
ground, where she seemed almost to lose the power of motion.
“What do you ax for that are beast?” enquired one. “That's
Chil's fiddle she's got there in that bag,” said Zenas Joy.
“That'll help pay for what the dum Injins owe daddy,” said
Seth Penrose. “Come, you may as well give it up.”

“You shan't touch it,” outspoke Judah Weeks. “I'll stand
here, and if anybody wants to put his tricks on her, he'll have
to play rough and tumble with me a while first. She an't to
blame for what her brother did.” While he was speaking,
Sibyl Radney elbowed herself into the midst, and seizing the
bundle under one arm, and Margaret under the other, bore
her off through the crowd who retreated before her. Sundry
boys still saw fit to follow; who again closed about Sibyl when
she stopped with her load. “There is Deacon Ramsdill,”
shouted one. “We'll have some fun out of him if we can't
out of the Injin,” cried another.

“Well, my lads,” said the Deacon, limping in among them
with his insenescible smile, “what have we here? You must
truss up a cow's tail if you don't want to be switched when
you are milking; if there is any mischief here we must attend
to it. Come, Molly, you must go with me. Out of the way
boys, a cat may look upon a king; I guess you will let a
squirrel look at you.—There, Molly,” continued the Deacon,
leading her across the Green into the East Street, “we have
got through the worst of it, and we praise a bridge that carries
us safe, even if it is a poor one.”

“I thank you, Sir, I thank you,” said Margaret; “but, oh,
let me be, let me die, let the boys kill me.”

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“Dogs that bark arter a wagon,” replied the Deacon,
“keep out of the way of the whip; I guess the boys wouldn't
hurt you much. The people are a good deal up, and when
the grain is weedy we must reap high, we must do the best
we can. I have seen Judge Morgridge, and he thinks you
will be safest at my house; Squire Beach says he can't employ
you, and I think you had better go home with me. The
Judge says his Susan wants to see you, and it wouldn't be
best for you to go to his house now, because he is Judge.
Freelove will be glad to see you. When you was at our house
before, you was gone so much you didn't hardly give her a
taste.”

“There is nothing left to me,” said Margaret; “I am blank
despair.”

“The finer the curd the better the cheese,” replied the
Deacon. “They are cutting you up considerable smart, but
it may be as well in the end. What you are going through is
nothing to what I saw down to Arcady, when we went to
bring off the French under Col. Winslow. We dragged them
out of their houses, tore children from their mothers, wives
from their husbands, and piled them helter-skelter in the
boats. Then we set fire to everything that would kindle,
burnt up houses, barns, crops, Meeting-houses. They stuck
to their old homes like good fellows. One boy we saw running
off with his old mother on his back into the woods, and
we had to bring him down with a bullet before he would
stop. We took off nigh eighteen thousand of them. When
we weighed anchor, their homes were in ashes, their woods
all a fire, and the black smoke hung over the whole so
funeral-like—they set up such a dismal yell as if the whole
airth was going to a butchery—yours an't a feather to it,
Molly.”

“How could you do such things!” exclaimed Margaret.

“Oh, they was Papists and French, it was political, I believe,
I don't know much about it. Here is our house, and
the fifty acres of land I got for that job. It has lain powerful
hard on my conscience, I have struggled agin it—I don't
know as I should ever have got the better of it, if the Lord
hadn't a come and forgiven me. Freelove, I have found the
gal. She will pine away like a sick sheep if we don't nuss
and cosset her up a little.”

The Deacon's, to which Margaret was not altogether a
stranger, was a small, one-story, brown house, having a garden
on one side, a grass lot on the other, and a corn-field in the

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rear. Over the front door trailed a large luxuriant woodbine,
now dyed by the frosts into a dark claret. What with the grant
of land, a small pension continued until the Revolution, the
Deacon, maugre his lameness, had secured a comfortable
livelihood for himself and wife, which was the extent of his
family. The usual garnish of pewter appeared in one corner
of the room into which Margaret was led, in the other stood a
circular snap-table, between the two hung a black-framed
looking glass supported on brass knobs blazoned with miniature
portraits, underneath the glass was a japaned comb-case,
and a cushion bristling with pins and needles, on one wall
ticked a clock without a case, its weights dangling to the floor;
against the opposite wall was a turn-up bed, over the fire-place
were pipes suspended by their throats and iron candle-sticks
hanging by their ears; there was a settle in the room,
an oval-back arm chair which the Deacon occupied, while his
wife, in mob-cap and iron-rimmed bridge spectacles, sat knitting
in a low flag-bottomed chair by the chimney corner, and
Margaret had her place assigned opposite in a large stuffed
easy chair. For dinner Mistress Ramsdill prepared tea for
Margaret, which she poured from a small, bluish, gold-flowered,
swan-shaped china pot into cups of similar character,
and the Deacon roasted her some apples with his own hands,
and both insisted upon her eating something, to which she
seemed in no way inclined.

“Why do you treat me so much more kindly than other
people?” said Margaret, when she resumed her seat in the
easy chair.

“I don't know,” replied the Deacon, “except it's nater.
By the grace of God, I yielded to nater. I fought agin it till
I was past forty; when what Christ says in what they call his
Sarmon on the Mount, and a Colt brought me to. I will tell
you about the Colt. Mr. Stillwater, at the Crown and Bowl,
had one, and he wouldn't budge an inch; and they banged
him, and barnacled him, and starved him, and the more they
did, the more he wouldn't stir, only bob, and fling, and snort.
He was an ear-brisk and high-necked critter, out of Old
Delancy. It kinder seemed to me that something could be
done, and they let me take the Colt; I kept him here in the
mow-lot, made considerable of him, groomed him, stroked
him, and at last I got him so he would round and caracol, and
follow me like a spoon-fed lamb; he was as handy as the
Judge's bayard; just like your squirrel there, he is docile as a
kitten. I had this nater when I was arter the Hurons under

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General Webb, and it shook my fire-lock so when I was
pulling the trigger upon a sleeping red-skin, I let him go.
And when we were in the ships coming away from Arcady, it
made me give up my bed to a sick French gal, about as old
as you, Molly, and nigh as well favored; yes, it made me take
her up in my arms, rough, soldier-like as I was, and lay her
down in my hammock, and she thanked me so with her eyes;
she couldn't speak English—”

“What became of her?”

“She had a lover, I believe, in the other vessel, and when
we got to the Bay, it wasn't political to have them put in one
place, he was sent away, and they put her in a Poor-house,
where she fell off in a decline. One of them old French
Priests that I helped tear away from the blazing altar of his
church, used to come round hereabouts peddling wooden
spoons, and I declare, it made the tears come in these eyes to
see him, and nater got the upper hands, so I gave him lodgings
once a whole month. I fought agin nater, I tell you, and a
tough spell I had of it. I read in the Good Book what
Christ said about the Blessed Ones, and it wan't me, and
Freelove said it wan't her. It went through us like a
bagonet. I was struck under conviction here alone one night,
when our little Jessie lay in the crib there by the fire. I
looked into her sweet white face as she was asleep, and knew
Christ would have blessed her, and that she belonged to the
kingdom, and it all came over me how I had slided off from
what I was when I was a boy, that I had been abusing nater
all my life. When Freelove come in I told her, and she said
she felt just so too. I tried to pray, but nater stood right up
before me, and prayed louder than I did, and I couldn't be
heard. The arrows of the Almighty stuck fast in me. We
lay one night on the floor, fighting, sweating, groaning. We
were not quite ready to give in. We tried to brace up on the
notions and politicals, but nater kept knocking them down.
Then the Colt came, then I saw it in Old Brindle, our cow,
then I saw it in the sheep, then I remembered the French Gal
and the Indian; and at last we give in, and it was all as plain
as a pipestem. When I went out in the morning, I saw it in the
hens and chickens, the calves, the bees, in the rocks, and in
all Creation. There is nater in everybody only if it was not
for their notions and politicals. The Papists, the Negroes and
the Indians have it. Like father like child,—I believe we all
have the same nater. I have heard Freelove's grandfather
tell—his father told him, he was cousin of Captain Church,

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and sarved in the expedition— how when they went out arter
the Pequods, and had killed the men, and burned the women
and boys and gals in their wigwams, they found one woman
had covered her baby with the mats and skins, and then
spread herself over to keep off the blazing barks and boughs;
and when they raked open the brands there was the roasted
body of the woman, and under her the little innocent all
alive, and it stretched up its baby hands—but the soldiers
clubbed their firelocks—”

“Oh! these are dreadful stories, I cannot bear them now.”

“There is nater agin, Freelove, just as we always told one
another. What is bred in the bone will never be out of the
flesh; it is only kicking agin the pricks, wrastle with it as
hard as you will.”

“I can never think of myself again,” said Margaret; “but
my poor brother and Mr. Smith's family—”

“I stuttered up to No. 4 yesterday arter the funeral, but
they are so grown over with rum there, you can hardly tell
what is nater, and what is not. I read out of the Bible to
Mr. Smith's folk, and tried to pray with them, but they
couldn't bear it. That agin is part rum and part nater. You
know, Freelove, how we felt when our Jessie died, we didn't
want to see any one; all their words couldn't put life into her
cold dead body. I should have gone up to see you at the
Pond, but I can't get round as I used to before I was hamstrung
on the Plains of Abr'am, under General Wolfe. It's dreadful
business, this killing people, it's agin nater; I followed it up
a purpose, and have killed a good many in my day. Christ
have marcy on me! If I had my desarts I should have been
hung long ago. Rum too is dreadful business, Molly; and I
guess it had a good deal to do with that matter up to your
house.”

The Deacon was a great talker, and in modern parlance
might have proved a bore, if his wife had not jogged him, and
said, “the gal had not had any sleep for three nights, and she
guessed she had better try and see if she couldn't get some.”
The bed was lowered, and Margaret laid upon it, where she
was quiet if she did not sleep most of the afternoon. In the
evening, Susan Morgridge came to see her. Susan's manner
was calm, but her heart was warm and her sentiments generous.
She told Margaret that nothing had been heard from
Mr. Evelyn since his departure for Europe, and that Isabel
Weeks was still at the Hospital slowly recovering from a long
fever which had succeeded the Small-pox. But the absorbing

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topic was Chilion and the death of young Smith. Susan told
Margaret there were some who would do all that could be
done in the case, but that her father apprehended her brother
could not be saved from the extremest penalty of the law.
Margaret replied that the whole affair was to her own mind
enveloped in mystery, that Chilion would reveal nothing to
her, and that she had hardly equanimity enough to give the
subject any cool reflection. Finally, for this seemed to be a
part of her errand, Miss Morgridge proposed that Margaret
should see Esq. Bowker, who she said was a valued friend of
hers, and that he would be happy to do her any service in his
power in the approaching crisis; and that gratuitously.

The moment the nine o'clock bell dropped its last note,
Deacon Ramsdill spread open a large book on his lap, put
glasses on his nose, while his wife deliberately pulled off her
glasses, drew out her needle from the sheath and laid her
knitting carefully aside. “I have got the Bible here,” said
the Deacon, “and we want to pray—that is, if you can stand
it. When you was here in the Summer, you staid out so
much we couldn't bring it about. I saw you once laughing at
what was in the Book, and I took it away, because I knew
you wasn't prepared for it, and hadn't got hold of the right
end. Freelove and I have talked this matter over; and we
know how it is with you; we know how you feel about these
things up to the Pond. A hen frightened from her nest it is
hard to get back, and you was handled pretty roughly down
here to Meeting once. We musn't give a babe strong meat,
the Book says, and nater says so too; and folks that tend
babies musn't have pins about them. Then agin you can't
wean babies in a day; it takes some time to get them from
milk to meat. Praying, arter all, isn't a hard thing; its
nater. I used to pray when I was a boy, but I left it off in
the Wars, and didn't begin it agin till nater got the upper
hands once more. I have seen the Indians pray up among the
Hurons, and they couldn't say a word of our language. It is
speaking out what is inside here, it is sort o' feeling up. It
comes easier as you go along, just as it is with the cows, the
more they are milked the more they give. I hope, Molly, you
won't feel bad about it. It is time to reap when the grain
becomes shrunk and yellow, and I think you look nigh in the
same case; and it seems time to pray.”

“I shall not feel bad,” replied Margaret; “you are so good
to me, and I love Christ now, and should be glad to hear anything
he says.”

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