sisted the first fierce impulse,
and were now waiting patiently for justice to take its course. Months
passed, and the stay of execution had to be renewed. The road to
Halloway's grew up and I understood that the house had fallen in,
though I never went that way again. Still the court hung fire as to its
conclusion.

"The day set for the execution approached for the third time without the
court having rendered its decision.

"On the day before that set for the execution, the court gave its
decision. It refused to interfere in the case of old Joel, but reversed
and set aside the verdict in that of the younger man. Of a series
of over one hundred bills of exception taken by his counsel as a
'drag-net,' one held; and owing to the admission of a single question
by a juror, the judgment was set aside in Absalom's case and a new trial
was ordered.

"Being anxious lest the excitement might increase, I felt it my duty to
stay at the county-seat that night, and as I could not sleep I spent the
time going over the records of the two cases; which, like most causes,
developed new points every time they were read.

"Everything was perfectly quiet all night, though the village was
filling up with people from the country to see the execution, which at
that time was still public. I determined next morning to go to my home
in the country and get a good rest, of which I began to feel the need.
I was detained, however, and it was well along in the forenoon before I
mounted my horse and rode slowly out of town through a back street. The
lane kept away from the main road except at one point just outside of
town, where it crossed it at right angles.

"It was a beautiful spring day--a day in which it is a pleasure merely
to live, and as I rode along through the quiet lane under the leafy
trees I could not help my mind wandering and dwelling on the things
that were happening. I am not sure, indeed, that I was not dozing; for I
reached the highway without knowing just where I was.

"I was recalled to myself by a rush of boys up the street before
me, with a crowd streaming along behind them. It was the head of the
procession. The sheriff and his men were riding, with set faces, in
front and on both sides of a slowly moving vehicle; a common horse-cart
in which in the midst of his guards, and dressed in his Sunday clothes,
with a clean white shirt on, seated on his pine coffin, was old Joel. I
unconsciously gazed at him, and at the instant