into
silence.

Walter's struggle was by no means ended by the disappearance of Small
and Bud. There came the recollection of his mother's stern face--a face
which had never been a motive toward the right, but only a goad to
deception. What would she say if he should confess? Just as he had
recovered himself, and was about to repeat the old lie which had twice
died upon his lips at the sight of Bud's look, he caught sight of
another face, which made him tremble again. It was the lofty and
terrible countenance of Mr. Soden. One might have thought, from the
expression it wore, that the seven last vials were in his hands, the
seven apocalyptic trumpets waiting for his lips, and the seven thunders
sitting upon his eyebrows. The moment that Walter saw him he smelled the
brimstone on his own garments, he felt himself upon the crumbling brink
of the precipice, with perdition below him. Now I am sure that "Brother
Sodoms" were not made wholly in vain. There are plenty of mean-spirited
men like Walter Johnson, whose feeble consciences need all the support
they can get from the fear of perdition, and who are incapable of any
other conception of it than a coarse and materialistic ones Let us set
it down to the credit of Brother Sodom, with his stiff stock, his
thunderous face, and his awful walk, that his influence over Walter was
on the side of truth.

"Please proceed," said Squire Hawkins to Walter. The Squire's wig lay on
one side, he had forgotten to adjust his eye, and he leaned forward,
tremulous with interest.

"Well, then," said Walter, looking not at the court nor at Bronson nor
at the prisoner, but furtively at Mr. Soden--"well, then, if I
must"--and Mr. Soden's awful face seemed to answer that he surely
must--"well, then, I hope you won't send me to prison"--this to Squire
Hawkins, whose face reassured him--"but, oh! I don't see how I can!"
But one look at Mr. Soden assured him that he could and that he must,
and so, with an agony painful to the spectators, he told the story in
driblets. How, while yet in Lewisburg, he had been made a member of a
gang of which Small was chief; how they concealed from him the names of
all the band except six, of whom the Joneses and Small were three.

Here there was a scuffle at the door. The court demanded silence.

"Dr. Small's trying to git out, plague take him," said Bud, who stood
with his back planted against the door. "I'd like the court to send and
git his trunk afore he ha