was visible, until suddenly out of a low, dark passage, between some barrels, a stooping figure emerged, giving Carl a momentary start of alarm.

"What's the trouble, Carl?"

"O! Mishter Stackridge! is it you?" said Carl, as the figure stood erect in the dim light,—sallow, bony, grim, attired in coarse clothes. "The schoolmaster—that is the trouble!" and he hastily related what he had seen.

"Wouldn't take the pistol? the fool!" muttered the farmer. "But I'll see what I can do for him." He grasped the boy's collar, and said in a suppressed but terribly earnest voice, "Swear never to breathe a word of what I'm going to show you!"

"I shwear!" said Carl.

"Come!"

Stackridge took him by the wrist, and drew him after him into the passage. It was utterly dark, and Carl had to stoop in order to avoid hitting his head. As they approached the end of it, he could distinguish the sound of voices,—one louder than the rest giving the word of command.

"Order—arms!"

The farmer knocked on the head of a cask, which rolled aside, and opened the way into a cellar beyond, under an old storehouse, which was likewise a part of Barber Jim's property.

The second cellar was much larger and better lighted than the first, and rendered picturesque by heavy festoons of cobwebs hanging from the dark beams above. The rays of the lamps flashed upon gun-barrels, and cast against the damp and mouldy walls gigantic shadows of groups of men. Some were conversing, others were practising the soldiers' drill.

"Neighbors!" said Stackridge, in a voice which commanded instant attention, and drew around him and Carl an eager group. "It's just as I told you,—Ropes and his gang are lynching Hapgood!"

"It's the fellow's own fault," said a stern, dark man, the same who had been drilling the men. "He should have taken care of himself."

"Young Hapgood's a decent sort of cuss," said another whom Carl knew,—a farmer named Withers,—"and I like him. I believe he means well; but he ain't one of us."

"I've been deceived in him," said a third. "He always minded his own business, and kept so quiet about our institutions, I never suspected he was anti-slavery till I talked with him t'other day about joining us—then he out with it."

"He thinks we're all wrong," said a bigoted pro-slavery man named Deslow. "He says slavery's the cause of the war, and it's absurd in us to go in for the Union and slavery too!" For these men, though loyal to the government, and bitterly opposed to secession, were nearly all slaveholders or believers in slavery.

"May be the fellow ain't far wrong there," said he who had been drilling his comrades. "I think myself slavery's the cause of the war, and that's what puts us in such a hard place. The time may come when we will have to take a different stand—go the whole figure with the free north, or drift with the cotton states. But that time hain't come yet."

"But the time has come," said Stackridge, impatiently, "to do something for Hapgood, if we intend to help him at all. While we are talking, he may be hanging."

"And what can we do?" retorted the other. "We can't make a move for him without showing our hand, and it ain't time for that yet."

"True enough, Captain Grudd," said Stackridge. "But three or four of us, with our revolvers, can happen that way, and take him out of the hands of Ropes and his cowardly crew without much difficulty. I, for one, am going."

"Hapgood don't even believe in fighting!" observed Deslow, with immense disgust; "and blast me if I am going to fight for him!"

Carl was almost driven to despair by the indifference of these men and the time wasted in discussion. He could have hugged the grim and bony Stackridge when he saw him make a decided move at last. Three others volunteered to accompany them. The cask was once more rolled away from the entrance, and one by one they crept quickly through the passage into the first cellar.

Stackridge preceded the rest, to see that the way was clear. There was no one at the bar; the door leading into the shop was closed; and Carl, following the four men, passed out by a long entry communicating with the street, the door of which was thrown open to the public on occasions when there was a great rush to Jim's bar, but which was fastened this night by a latch that could be lifted only from the inside.

IV.

A SEARCH FOR THE MISSING.

The academy was situated in a retired spot, half a mile out of the village. Stackridge and his party were soon pushing rapidly towards it along the dark, unfrequented road. Carl ran on before, leading the way to the scene of the lynching.

The place was deserted and silent. Only the cold wind swept the bleak wood-side, making melancholy moans among the trees. Overhead shone the stars, lighting dimly the desolation of the ground.

"Now, where's yer tar-and-feathering party?" said Stackridge. "See here, Dutchy! ye hain't been foolin' us, have ye?"

"I vish it vas notting but fooling!" said Carl, full of distress, fearing the worst. "We have come too late. The willains have took him off."

"Feathers, men!" muttered Stackridge, picking up something from beneath his feet. "The boy's right! Now, which way have they gone?—that's the question."

"Hark!" said Carl. "I see a man!"

Indeed, just then a dim figure arose from the earth, and appeared slowly and painfully moving away.

"Hold on there!" cried Stackridge. "Needn't be afeared of us. We're your friends."

The figure stopped, uttering a deep groan.

"Is it you, Hapgood?"

"No," answered the most miserable voice in the world. "It's me."

"Who's me?"

"Pepperill—Dan Pepperill; ye know me, don't ye, Stackridge?"

"You? you scoundrel!" said the farmer. "What have ye been doing to the schoolmaster? Answer me this minute, or I'll——"

"O, don't, don't!" implored the wretch. "I'll answer, I'll tell every thing, only give me a chance!"

"Be quick, then, and tell no lies!"

The poor man looked around at his captors in the starlight, stooping dejectedly, and rubbing his bent knees.

"I ain't to blame—I'll tell ye that to begin with. I've been jest knocked about, from post to pillar, and from pillar to post, till I don't know who's my friends and who ain't. I reckon more ain't than is!" added he, dismally.

"That's neither here nor there!" said Stackridge. "Where's Hapgood? that's what I want to know."

"Ye see," said Dan, endeavoring to collect his wits (you would have thought they were in his kneepans, and he was industriously rubbing them up), "Ropes sent me to tote the kittle home, and when I got back here, I be durned if they wasn't all gone, schoolmaster and all."

"But what had they done to him?"

"I don't know, I'm shore! That's what I was a comin' back fur to see. He let me down when I was hung up on the rail, and helped me home; and so I says to myself, says I, 'Why shouldn't I do as much by him?' so I come back, and found him gone."

"What was in the kittle?" Stackridge took him by the throat.

"O, don't go fur to layin' it to me, and I'll tell ye! Thar'd been tar in the kittle! It had been used to give him a coat. That's the fact, durn me if it ain't! They put it on with the broom—my broom—they made me bring my own broom, that's the everlastin' truth! made me do it myself, and spile my wife's best broom into the bargain!" And Pepperill sobbed.

"You put on the tar?"

"Don't kill me, and I'll own up! I did put on some on't, that's a fact. Ropes would a' killed me if I hadn't, and now you kill me fur doin' of it. He did knock me down, 'cause he said I didn't rub it on hard enough; and arter that he rubbed it himself."

"What next, you scoundrel?"

"Next, they rolled him in the feathers, and sent me, as I told ye, to tote the kittle home. Now don't, don't go fur to hang me, Mr.