"

"I'll kill him," shouted the young bully of Johnson's Cross-roads, and
late distrainer on the profile of Cyrus James, Esquire, seizing an ugly
stick.

"Justifiable as _son assault demesne_," remarked the creditor,
carelessly, as he wrenched the bobbin from the spinning-wheel and
knocked the boy down with it.

His commanding manner and the ready hand operated to abash the latter,
and, deeply pained with the scene, Levin Dennis fervently and
impulsively cried to Van Dorn:

"Oh, Captain! can't you pay her debts! I'll give all Joe's going to give
me, to pay you back. See how she lays on the bare floor! Hear her child
crying for her! Oh! I think I hear my mother's voice a-callin' of me
home as I listen to it."

Van Dorn, feeling Levin's hands grasp his own with simple confidence,
heard and did not turn his head, while blushes like roses bloomed
successively upon his fresh, effeminate cheeks. He did not repel the
boy's hands, however, but looked at the scene with worldly and unpitying
curiosity.

"To pay the distraints of Isaac and Jacob Cannon," he murmured, softly,
"would keep a poor slaver poor. You must grow accustomed to such cries:
I had to do so. Learn to love money like that merchant and me, and you
will think them music."

"Oh, when we cry to God for mercy, captain, maybe our cries will sound
like that! I can't bear to hear it."

"You told mother, Jake Cannon, when she rented this ole house," the boy,
Owen Daw, exclaimed, "that she needn't pay the rent, if she didn't want
to, till the day of judgment."

"I've got the judgment," Jacob Cannon answered, his whitish eyes seeming
to chuckle to the bridge of his nose, "and this is the day it's due. All
legal days are 'judgment days' to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."

"My son, my son," the woman's voice wailed out to Owen Daw, "I see the
end of your going to Patty Cannon's: my baby to the grave, myself to the
almshouse, and you to the gallows."

"Captain, Captain," Levin cried, "oh, pay the debt for me! Mother's
never been poor as this. Pay it, and I will work fur you anywhair, dear
captain."

"How much is the debt," asked Van Dorn, lispingly.

"Ten dollars," spoke the constable, also moved to shame.

"Cannon, will you take me for it?"

"I'll take your judgment-bond or the cash, Captain Van Dorn, nothing
less."

"Put back her stuff," the captain said, slightly pressing Levin's hand,
as if to say, "This is for you"--"put back her stuff and I'll settle it