nd the Bible
phraseology. The quarrel had been waged for some time, and poor Tommy,
the bone of contention, sitting all the while between the contending
parties in a state of utter nudity, kept up a fine running accompaniment
to the full tones of the wranglers, by crying bitterly for his breeches.

For the first time for a long period of years, the lady found her powers
of tongue fail in the proposed effect upon the understanding of her
loving and legal lord; and knowing but of one other way to assail it,
her hand at length grappling with the stool, from which she tumbled the
breechless babe without scruple, seized upon an argument to which her
adversary could oppose neither text nor technical; when, fortunately for
him, the loud rapping of their early visiters at the outer door of the
dwelling interposed between her wrath and its object, and spared the
life of the devout sheriff for other occurrences. Bundling the naked
child out of sight, the mother rushed into an inner apartment, shaking
the stool in the pale countenance of her lord as she retreated, in a
manner and with a look which said, as plainly as words could say, that
this temporary delay would only sharpen her appetite for vengeance, and
exaggerate its terrors when the hour did arrive. It was with a
hesitating step and wobegone countenance, therefore, that the officer
proceeded to his parlor, where a no less troublesome, but less awkward
trial awaited him.

[Transcriber's note: A chapter number was skipped in the original book.]

CHAPTER XXIX.

ARREST.

The high-sheriff made his appearance before his early and well-known
visiters with a desperate air of composure and unconcern, the effort to
attain which was readily perceptible to his companions. He could not, in
the first place, well get rid of those terrors of the domestic world
from which their interruption had timely shielded him; nor, on the other
hand, could he feel altogether assured that the visit now paid him would
not result in the exaction of some usurious interest. He had recently,
as we have said, as much through motives of worldly as spiritual policy,
become an active religionist, in a small way, in and about the section
of country in which he resided; and knowing that his professions were in
some sort regarded with no small degree of doubt and suspicion by some
of his brethren holding the same faith, he felt the necessity of playing
a close and cautious game in all his practices. H