et up here, you young robber!"

The farmer jerked his prisoner roughly to his feet, and by this time
Josh came up. The arrival of re-enforcements, and the ease with which he
was handled, convinced Tom that further resistance was useless, and he
began to beg lustily.

"O, now, if you will let me go I'll never do it again," he pleaded.

"O yes, we'll let you go," was the encouraging reply. "We'll lock you up
till morning, and then take you over to the 'squire; that's what we'll
do with you. Catch hold of him, Josh."

His captor held fast to one arm, Josh took hold of the other, and Tom
was marched off between them. Of course he pulled back, and tried hard
to escape; but the stalwart young farmers walked him along without the
least difficulty. When they reached the house, they pulled him up the
steps that led to the porch, and opening a door, ushered him into the
kitchen, where Tom found himself in the presence of the female portion
of the farmer's family.

"Here's one of the rogues, mother," exclaimed Josh. "Sit down, and let's
have a good look at you."

If Tom at that moment could have purchased his freedom by promising that
he would give up his new idea, and leave the students in quiet
possession of the Storm King, he would have done it, gladly. He sank
into the chair Josh pointed out to him, and sat with his chin resting on
his breast, and his eyes fastened on the floor, not daring to look up
long enough to ascertain whether or not there was any one in the room
with whom he was acquainted. He knew that half a dozen pairs of eyes
were looking at him with curiosity; and he felt that if he had never
before been utterly disgraced, he was now. No one spoke to him, and in a
few minutes the silence became so oppressive that Tom would have
welcomed a thunderstorm, or an earthquake. He twisted about in his
chair, whirled his cap in his hand, and gazed steadily at a crack in the
floor, until he was relieved by the noise of feet on the porch, which
was followed by the entrance of the farmer, with the rest of the party
who had been guarding the potato-patch. Then, for the first time, he
mustered up courage enough to look around him. He noted two things--one
was, that every person in the room was a stranger to him; and the other,
that he had a companion in his misery, in the shape of his mate, who,
unlike his superior officer, did not seem to be at all abashed at
finding himself the center of so many eyes. He held his head up