religious principle, which is the only safe guide and standard. His conscience reproaches him for what he has done and for what he has left undone. He feels that he has dishonored the memory of his lost wife, and that his conduct is a continued wrong to his child. Like thousands of others, he shuns that which might lead him into the path of truth and right. He pays liberally for the support of his boy, and tries to persuade himself that he is doing all that honor requires of him.

All this is but the introduction to our story; and with the next chapter we step over a period of more than a dozen years.

CHAPTER III.

LITTLE BOBTAIL.

"What have you done with it, Robert?" demanded Ezekiel Taylor, a coarse, rough man of forty, who was partially intoxicated and very angry. "You and your mother've hid that jug of rum."

Robert looked at Mrs. Taylor, who was making bread at the table, but he did not deem it prudent to make any reply. That jug was the evil genius of the little household. It had transformed Ezekiel Taylor from an honest, industrious, and thriving man, into a mean, lazy, and thriftless drunkard. It had brought misery and contention into the little house which he had bought and paid for before his marriage. He was a cooper by trade, and had set up in business for himself; but his dissolute habit had robbed him of his shop, and reduced him first to a journeyman and then to a vagabond. He earned hardly enough to pay for the liquor he consumed; but, somehow,—and how was the mystery which perplexed everybody who knew the Taylors,—the family always had enough to eat and good clothes to wear. Years before, he had, under the pretence of buying a shop in which to set up in business again, mortgaged his house for five hundred dollars, and his wife had signed away her right of dower in the premises, without a suspicion of anything wrong. But the money was quickly squandered, and Squire Gilfilian, who had the mortgage, threatened to take the place, though the interest was paid with tolerable regularity by the wife.

Ezekiel worked a little when he was sober; but a day of industry was sure to be followed by a spree. He could procure a few drinks at the saloons; but as soon as he began to be tipsy, even the saloon keepers refused to furnish him more, for the public sentiment of the place fiercely condemned them. The cooper had worked a day and obtained a jug of rum. After breakfast he had gone into the village and drank two or three times, and when he could procure no more liquor there, he came home to continue his spree on the stock he had before laid in. The jug had been concealed in the wood-shed, where Robert had discovered it. It suggested evil to himself and his mother, abuse and even personal violence. As he afterwards explained it, he saw a storm brewing, and, like a prudent sailor, he had prepared for it, or prepared to avert it, by taking the jug down to the steamboat wharf and dropping it upon the rocks below, where the rising tide soon covered the pieces, and for a time concealed the evidences of the deed.

"What have you done with it, you villain?" repeated the angry head of the family, looking first at the boy and then at his wife.

"I haven't seen it, and didn't know you had any jug," replied Mrs. Taylor.

"Don't lie to me about it," stormed Ezekiel. "You can't fool me. I left that jug in the wood-shed, and 'tain't there now. It couldn't have gone off without any help."

"I haven't touched it," repeated Mrs. Taylor.

"Yes, you have; you know you have," added the tippler, demonstrating with a clinched fist towards her.

"I tell you I haven't seen it."

"I say you have," said Ezekiel, shaking his fist in her face; "you know you have; and if you don't tell me what you've done with it, it'll go hard with you."

"She hasn't seen it, and don't know anything at all about it," interposed Robert, in order to turn the wrath of the inebriate from his mother.

"Then you do, you villain," said Ezekiel, turning sharply upon the youth.

The boy did not make any reply.

"What have you done with it?" cried the angry cooper.

"Mother knows nothing at all about it; she hasn't touched it, and didn't know there was any jug there."

Mrs. Taylor suspended work and looked earnestly at the boy. She understood by his manner that he had removed the jug, and she dreaded the consequences of her husband's wrath. Ezekiel continued to repeat his question in his drunken frenzy, and to demonstrate violently with his fist at the youth. He turned again upon his wife, and accused her of being a party to the removal of the jug; but Robert's only object seemed to be to shield her from his wrath.

"I tell you again she don't know anything at all about it," said he, at last. "I did the business myself; and that jug has gone up. It won't hold any more rum."

"What did you do with it, you villain?" gasped Ezekiel.

"I dropped it off the railroad wharf upon the rocks; and there isn't a piece left of it big enough to stop a mouse hole."

"You did—did you?"

"I did," added Robert, desperately, as he braced himself to brave the consequences of his bold deed.

"What business had you to meddle with my property?" demanded Ezekiel, furiously.

"It was a kind of property that don't make any man the richer," replied the youth.

"Who told you to do it?" asked the inebriate, glancing at his wife.

"No one told me, and no one knew anything about it."

"Then I'll teach you to steal my property! I'll take it out of your hide, you rascal."

"There isn't any of it in my hide, and I don't mean there ever shall be."

Ezekiel took down a clothes-stick which was hanging against the wall, and with it he made a dive and a plunge at Robert. The boy was too active to be caught by a man whose footing was none too steady. He easily dodged the blows which were aimed at him, till the tippler, out of breath from his exertions, placed himself before the door to prevent the escape of the culprit, and there rested himself from the fatigue of the onslaught.

"Don't you strike that boy," said Mrs. Taylor, warmly; and she had before essayed to suspend the strife.

"Yes I will! I'll flog him within an inch of his life. I'll teach him to meddle with my property," gasped Ezekiel.

"If you do, I'll leave this house, and never come into it again. I won't have no such goings on where I am," said the woman, warmly and energetically.

"That's right, mother; you leave," added Robert, who had remained in the room only to turn the wrath of the husband from her to himself.

"He shan't hurt you, Robert. I'll stand up for you to the end," added Mrs. Taylor, as she passed into her chamber, which was next to the "living-room."

"I don't care who goes, nor who stays. I ain't a going to have any such works as this," continued Ezekiel, as he gathered himself up for another attack. "I ain't a going to have my property, that cost money, destroyed, and you won't want to do such a thing again, I can tell you."

The angry man rushed towards Robert, who stood near the door which opened into the front entry; but he knew that it was locked, and so he did not attempt to escape in that direction. Being in the corner, his furious assailant attempted to pin him there; but Robert, by a flank movement, reached the door which led to the wood-shed, and passed out. He was closely pursued by Ezekiel; but the tipsy man might as well have attempted to catch a