s one of them.

"The old village of Trent lies back in the hills, a little journey
from Pointview, on the shores of a pleasant river. To the unknowing
traveler, who approaches from either hilltop, it has a peaceful and
inviting look. But the rutted, rocky road begins at once to excite
suspicion. A bad road is an indication and a producer of degeneracy in
man and beast. It tends to profanity, and if it went far would
probably lead to hell. Trent itself is one of the little modern hells
of New England. There are the venerable and neatly fashioned houses of
the old-time Yankee--the peaked roofs and gables, the columns, the
cozy verandas, the garden spaces. But the old-time Yankees are gone.
The well-kept gardens are no more. Many of the houses are going to
ruin. One is an Italian tenement. The others are inhabited by
coachmen, chauffeurs, gardeners, mill-hands, and degenerate Yankees.
The inn is a mere barroom. Sounds of revelry and the odor of stale
beer come out of it. In front are teams of burden, abandoned, for a
time, by their drivers, and sundry human signs of decay loafing in the
shadow of the old lindens. Among them are the seedy remnants of a once
noble race. They are fettered by 'rheumatiz' and the disordered liver.
They move like boats dragging their anchors. To make life tolerable
their imaginations need assistance. They are like the Flub Dubs of
lost Atlantis. Each imagines himself the greatest man in the village.
They talk in loud words. They quarrel and fight over the crown. So it
has been a brawling, besotted community.

"Trent's leading citizen is a Yankee politician who owns most of its
real estate and derives a profit from its lawless traffic. Trent has
been his enterprise.

"Knowles went over there one day to conduct a funeral, which was
interrupted by a dog-fight under the coffin and nearly broken up by a
row over two dollars which had been found in a pocket of the dead
man.

"We opened a club-house next to the hotel, and began a campaign for
the regeneration of Trent. Soon we discovered that its one officer was
unwilling to arrest offenders against law and order. We had him
removed and a new man put in his place. This man was set upon and
severely beaten, and lost interest in the good work. Then Harry
applied for the job and got it. He took with him a force of husky
young men--mostly college boys. The first day on duty he arrested in
the street a drunken man who carried in his hands a small sack