ious of, their great responsibility. The word had gone forth that
Barnaby was to die. It went forth, every month, for lighter crimes.
It was a thing so common, that very few were startled by the awful
sentence, or cared to question its propriety. Just then, too, when the
law had been so flagrantly outraged, its dignity must be asserted.
The symbol of its dignity,--stamped upon every page of the criminal
statute-book,--was the gallows; and Barnaby was to die.

They had tried to save him. The locksmith had carried petitions and
memorials to the fountain-head, with his own hands. But the well was not
one of mercy, and Barnaby was to die.

From the first his mother had never left him, save at night; and with
her beside him, he was as usual contented. On this last day, he was more
elated and more proud than he had been yet; and when she dropped the
book she had been reading to him aloud, and fell upon his neck, he
stopped in his busy task of folding a piece of crape about his hat,
and wondered at her anguish. Grip uttered a feeble croak, half in
encouragement, it seemed, and half in remonstrance, but he wanted heart
to sustain it, and lapsed abruptly into silence.

With them who stood upon the brink of the great gulf which none can see
beyond, Time, so soon to lose itself in vast Eternity, rolled on like a
mighty river, swollen and rapid as it nears the sea. It was morning but
now; they had sat and talked together in a dream; and here was evening.
The dreadful hour of separation, which even yesterday had seemed so
distant, was at hand.

They walked out into the courtyard, clinging to each other, but not
speaking. Barnaby knew that the jail was a dull, sad, miserable place,
and looked forward to to-morrow, as to a passage from it to something
bright and beautiful. He had a vague impression too, that he was
expected to be brave--that he was a man of great consequence, and that
the prison people would be glad to make him weep. He trod the ground
more firmly as he thought of this, and bade her take heart and cry no
more, and feel how steady his hand was. 'They call me silly, mother.
They shall see to-morrow!'

Dennis and Hugh were in the courtyard. Hugh came forth from his cell as
they did, stretching himself as though he had been sleeping. Dennis sat
upon a bench in a corner, with his knees and chin huddled together, and
rocked himself to and fro like a person in severe pain.

The mother and son remained on one side of th