, or they will have your life."

"True," muttered Hutchinson to himself; "what care these roarers for the
name of king? I must flee, or they will trample me down, on the door of my
own dwelling!"

Hurrying away, he and his daughter made their escape by the private
passage, at the moment when the rioters broke into the house. The foremost
of them rushed up the stair-case, and entered the room which Hutchinson
had just quitted. There they beheld our good old chair, facing them with
quiet dignity, while the lion's head seemed to move its jaws in the
unsteady light of their torches. Perhaps the stately aspect of our
venerable friend, which had stood firm through a century and a half of
trouble, arrested them for an instant. But they were thrust forward by
those behind, and the chair lay overthrown.

Then began the work of destruction. The carved and polished mahogany
tables were shattered with heavy clubs, and hewn to splinters with axes.
The marble hearths and mantel pieces were broken. The volumes of
Hutchinson's library, so precious to a studious man, were torn out of
their covers, and the leaves sent flying out of the windows. Manuscripts,
containing secrets of our country's history, which are now lost forever,
were scattered to the winds.

The old ancestral portraits, whose fixed countenances looked down on the
wild scene, were rent from the walls. The mob triumphed in their downfall
and destruction, as if these pictures of Hutchinson's forefathers had
committed the same offences as their descendant. A tall looking-glass,
which had hitherto presented a reflection of the enraged and drunken
multitude, was now smashed into a thousand fragments. We gladly dismiss
the scene from the mirror of our fancy.

Before morning dawned, the walls of the house were all that remained. The
interior was a dismal scene of ruin. A shower pattered in at the broken
windows, and when Hutchinson and his family returned, they stood shivering
in the same room, where the last evening had seen them so peaceful and
happy.

"Grandfather," said Laurence indignantly, "if the people acted in this
manner, they were not worthy of even so much liberty as the king of
England was willing to allow them."

"It was a most unjustifiable act, like many other popular movements at
that time," replied Grandfather. "But we must not decide against the
justice of the people's cause, merely because an excited mob was guilty of
outrageous violence. Besides,